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CA 





WHERE SNOW IS 
SOVEREIGN 

A Romance of the Glaciers 


BY 

RUDOLPH STRATZ 

f' 


Translated from the German by 

MARY J. SAFFORD 

Translator of ** The Scarlet Banner,” 
“ In the Desert,” etc. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1909 


Copyright, 1909, by 
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
Published, September, 1909 




ILLUSTRATIONS 


“ Zermatt Has a King . . 


THE Matterhorn ” (p. 98) 


Cover inlay 

“ It Seemed as though the 
Chaos of Rocks Would 
Never End” (p. 135) 


Frontispiece 

Alpine Heights 

Facing Page 12 

“ The Whole Glacier Land- 
scape Lay before Her ” . 


“ 36 

Grindelwald .... 

({ 

“ 56 

“ Below in the Valley 
. . .THE Great Modern 
Hotel ” . 


“ 90 

“The Boundaries of 
Heaven ” . . . . 

ti 

“ 156 


“The White English 
Church on the Opposite 


Hill ” 

it 

it 

172 

The Matterhorn 

it 

it 

198 

The Village Street . 

it 

a 

230 

The Village Below . 

it 

it 

240 

In the Meadow 

it 

it 

264 

Monte Rosa .... 

it 

a 

276 



CHAPTER I 


‘‘ Look out! — Falling stones! ” 

They stood still. The rock close to the edge 
of the ice-slope descending before them af- 
forded protection, while the ominous rumble 
above came nearer and nearer. 

For many a long hour the August sun had 
been gradually gnawing and licking the ce- 
ment of ice which had held the loose stones on 
the mountainside in a half-suspended position. 
Now the fetters were loosed and flowing in 
milky waves down to the valley. But before 
them the liberated Colossus flew and rolled in 
jubilant bounds over the steep, mirror-like de- 
scent. Like a band of busy gnomes all sorts of 
little pebbles and fragments of debris glided 
down behind their lord, crashing clumsily 
over on the right and left of the glacier. 
And behind the hurrying rabble, last of all, 
like some panting, breathless straggler, a 
big black boulder whizzed by, and follow- 
ing its comrades, plunged from the edge 
of the ice-slope headlong to the depths 
below. 


2 Where Snow is Sovereign 

There the snow received them. It gathered 
around the rolling masses of stone, piled itself 
before them in moving hills, far and wide the 
whole white coverlet began to stir and quiver, 
glided slowly forward, mingled with the 
descending debris in a cloud of crashing 
stone, rattling ice, and driving snow, and amid 
far-reaching thunder the avalanche swept on 
to the valley. The cliffs echoed back the 
sound. Moaning, rumbling noises rose from 
the mist-veiled depths, a roaring which passed 
from valley to valley through the mountain 
gorges to die away slowly in a hollow, mutter- 
ing growl. One more groan from some remote 
ravine, an angry grumble somewhere in the 
mist. Then all was still again. Frozen, 
solemn silence once more rested on the world 
of eternal snow and its cloud-capped moun- 
tain peaks. 


Pressing her slender figure closely against 
the hard rocks, and involuntarily clenching 
their projections tightly with her hands, she 
had gazed down upon the spectacle. The 
deep-blue eyes, whose radiant sparkle was cold, 
seemed to grow larger and larger as she looked 
across the glittering glacier to the yawning 
abysses, where the clouds of mist were swaying 


Where Snow is Sovereign 3 

and surging. They rose higher, floated 
over the beautiful woman’s head in spectral 
veils, and shrouded the earth and human 
•beings in a grey vapor, from which rose, mo- 
notonous and ceaseless, the plashing of the 
glacier water. Dimly through the mist ap- 
peared the bare, jagged cliffs, the pathless 
stretches of snow, and where the grey fog 
sometimes parted, high in the heavens, like 
pallid giants, the peaks of the Bernese Alps 
looked down into the world of ruin in the val- 
ley glaciers, with their fantastic ravines and 
hills of ice, half-fallen walls of snow, and 
black, frightfully yawning chasms, in whose 
depths roared subterranean streams. 

This was no world like the one below, where 
human beings lived and died. This solemn 
region of rocks and ice and snow, of surging 
mists and rushing streams, was a world in it- 
self, a wilderness, through whose silence stone 
and storm spoke with mighty, mysterious 
tongues to mankind. She did not yet under- 
stand this language. She found herself to-day 
in the heart of the Alpine world for the first 
time. But a thrill of emotion had seized upon 
her, diffusing a waxen pallor over the stern 
beauty of her features. She drew her breath 
heavily, with half-parted lips. It was not fear 


4 


Where Snow is Sovereign 

she felt. The awe of the lofty mountain re- 
gion had entered her soul. 


Brrruummm! ” said old Christen Zum 
Brunnen to himself. This imitation of the 
thunder of the avalanche was almost the only 
sound ever heard from the ancient mountain 
guide. 

As he crouched there, with his long, lean 
body and immensely lengthy, thin limbs 
nestled in some incomprehensible fashion into 
the crannies of the cliff, with his shrewd, tooth- 
less face furrowed by thousands of wrinkles, 
framed by clumps of thin grey hair, he seemed 
more like a fantastic creation of this upper 
world than a being of flesh and blood. 

Yet it was well for the tourist if, in some crit- 
ical moment, the rope was held by old Zum 
Brunnen, the first-class cragsman, who had 
ascended the Jungfrau more than a hundred 
times, set his foot seven times on the “ Taub- 
chen ” of the Gross Schreckhorn, and after 
whose name might be read, placed within sig- 
nificant brackets in the guide-books, the words 
“ Caucasus ’’ and “ Himalaya.” He had long 
been a prosperous man. His married daugh- 
ters possessed their own flourishing inns, his 
sons, the mountain guides, never waited long 


Where Snow is Sovereign 5 

before the Bear in Grindelwald for employ- 
ers. Yet again and again old Zum Brunnen 
was attracted up to the majestic solitudes of 
this world above the clouds, where he had 
passed his life and, according to all human 
probability, would find his grave. 

To-day, it is true, he was vexed that he had 
gone out. With a woman, who, in spite of her 
courage, knew so little of mountain climbing, 
and bad weather into the bargain, the old man 
did not like it. 

Caspar Waegi, too, the second guide, a red- 
cheeked, sturdy fellow, endowed with almost 
brute strength and, according to glacier ideas, 
somewhat foppish, clad in brand new choco- 
late colored cloth, with a cock’s feather in his 
hat — Caspar Waegi, too, looked gloomy. 

It weighed heavily upon his Catholic heart 
because a short time before, in Wallis, he had 
yielded to the temptation of a godless Yankee’s 
dollars, and, instead of going to Holy Mass on 
Sunday morning, had climbed Monte Rosa. 

He might atone for the sin to-day. 

In the midst of this spiteful mist, which, 
contrary to all expectation, had closed them in 
several hours before sunset, with a tired, inex- 
perienced lady on the rope, a thousand metres 
above the club-house, to which only a danger- 


6 Where Snow is Sovereign 

ous descent led — Caspar Waegi was silent and 
looked thoughtful. The old man also stood 
speechless, moving his wrinkled mouth with a 
light, smacking sound as he pondered. 

Fortunately the lady was in good spirits. 

Go on,” she cried in a clear voice, grasp- 
ing old Zum Brunnen by the arm. The grey- 
haired guide, with a strange grin, turned his 
weather-beaten features toward her, and point- 
ed backward. 

We must go up again,” said Waegi, “ by 
the way we came, we can get no farther here.” 
And he angrily thought over all the inci- 
dents of this strange day. They had intended 
to ascend the Jungfrau, but, after crossing the 
Kalli, that horrible passage, were compelled to 
turn back on the Fiescher glacier, on account 
of bad weather. But the lady flatly refused 
to return to Grindelwald without having ac- 
complished something. She would at least 
spend the night in a club hut! On the way to 
the remote glacier hut they had been surprised 
by the mist and stopped. 

“ Go back again? ” The tourist sat down, 
propping her chin on her hands. “ Do what 
you choose, but I won’t go up another step. 
My legs are trembling like aspen leaves. Be- 
sides, it is very pleasant down here! ” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 7 

‘‘But dangerous!” replied Caspar Waegi 
impressively. “ We must cut steps in the 
ice-slope, and stones may fall down from 
above.” 

“Dangerous!” She looked up at him 
quickly, shaking her fair hair back from her 
brow. Her clear-cut face, now slightly red- 
dened by the mountain breeze, wore an in- 
credulous expression. 

Dangerous! She could not imagine how 
that was possible : she, the elegant woman of 
the world, guarded so carefully from every 
breath of air, every sunbeam, scarcely permit- 
ted to walk unattended in the hotel garden — 
in peril of her life! 

She could hardly help laughing, it seemed 
so comical. 

Yet, gazing out over the frozen wilderness 
surrounding her, she remained serious. 

This was exactly what she desired and, in a 
favorable moment, had executed! To escape, 
just once, from everything which, during her 
whole life, had held her in restraint, get out of 
the soft atmosphere of the drawing-room, from 
corsets and shoes, elude the perpetual oversight 
and guardianship, and for once act independ- 
ently, be a free human being. 

And to liberty belonged peril! If men de- 


8 Where Snow is Sovereign 

fied danger, nay, courted it, why should not 
she, too? 

She really felt no grave anxiety and, rising, 
said in a jesting tone: Every stone will not 
hit! Only go forward! ” 

The two guides looked at each other. To 
make the long circuit necessary to avoid the ice 
declivity with the wearied tourist was, also, in 
the present condition of the weather, and the 
late hour, not wholly free from danger. And, 
on the other hand, the perilous portion of the 
way was short. Old Zum Brunnen cast a side 
glance at his beautiful charge, and conde- 
scended to say a few words : “ She has cour- 
age! ” he growled, and Waegi nodded, saying 
thoughtfully: “ The lady is all right! ” 

There was a short pause, then the old man 
suddenly raised his pick, cast a doubtful 
glance upward, and began to hew steps in the 
ice as if frantic. 

First he cut with the steel point from the 
side a groove in the glacier, then, turning the 
axe, brought it whizzing down upon the place 
he had struck till a wide, comfortable step was 
made for the nail-shod mountain shoe. 

The hemp rope, interwoven with red, 
swayed between him and his companion, 
stretching more and more till at last it was 


Where Snow is Sovereign 9 

perfectly tense and she, holding the cord with 
only one hand, while bracing the alpenstock 
with the other against the sloping surface of 
the ice, cautiously descended from step to step. 

Caspar Waegi followed behind at the same 
pace, clasping the rope with a touch so elastic 
that it quivered in his left hand, in order to 
afford her instant support in^case of slipping. 
Only from time to time, while pushing himself 
with his ice-axe along the slope, he glanced 
hastily upward. With this exception he never 
averted his eyes from the slender, pliant figure 
before him, which, in the excitement of the 
moment, bent forward, shivering nervously, as 
it glided with cat-like tread in old Zum Brun- 
nen’s clumsy footsteps. 

Now the lady again stood close behind the 
old man, who was toiling at his ice-cutting in 
such frenzied haste that even his dried and 
withered skin began to shine with perspira- 
tion. Wherever his axe fell, little glittering 
fragments of crystal ice flew up, whirling like 
a hail-storm around her bowed head, until she 
was obliged to close both mouth and eyes. 

A strange situation! The clinking of the 
axe, the buzzing of the splinters of ice, the 
light fanning of the wind upon her cheeks, the 
acrid scent of tobacco rising from the old 


lo Where Snow is Sovereign 

man’s woollen coat, the heavy breathing of the 
two guides — her heart doubtless throbbed 
slightly faster — but actual fear — no, it was not 
fear! 

“Take care!” a voice suddenly shrieked 
shrilly behind her, and she felt the iron grasp 
of a bony hand. She looked up. 

A boulder had loosened on the upper edge 
of the ice-slope above them. At first slowly, 
then with ever-increasing speed, it shot down- 
ward, gliding on with a dull, muttering sound, 
as an angry beast rushes on its foe. 

The guides stood motionless, ready at the 
last moment to save themselves and their 
charge by springing aside and, in slipping 
down the slope, anchor again by striking in 
their ice-picks. 

A roar — a crash. Ten paces in front of 
them a thundering shadow dashed with the 
speed of lightning over the ice and, before the 
eye could follow it, vanished down the decliv- 
ity. A pause. Then from below an echoing 
noise rose from a chasm in the snow, and all 
was still. 

So this was death! The unknown thing 
which swept menacingly past her in the form 
of a fragment of rock 

A violent tremor ran through her whol^ 


II 


Where Snow is Sovereign 

body, and she felt drops of cold perspiration 
start on her forehead. 

Yet she could step freely, move firmly, nay, 
it seemed as if her strength increased and 
every shade of weariness vanished. 

This was no terror! The presence of the in- 
visible spectre brought a sense of freedom, ex- 
hilaration. Every nerve and fibre of her being 
struggled against the threatening destruction, 
and gave a feeling of unwonted vigor, a 
strange composure, which almost alarmed 
her. 

Yet, amid her labored breathing, she con- 
stantly thought: “Oh, ... it would be 
over already! ” 

Old Zum Brunnen, without looking up, 
worked on in frantic haste. Often one could 
scarcely imagine where his foot, which seemed 
to have grown to the ice, could find support 
while his lean arms swung the axe. 

But the progress was slow, infinitely slow! 
The dark, muffled figures, seen through the 
mist of the August evening, looked like flies 
creeping across a slanting mirror. 

Slowly . . . step by step . . . now 
there were six more steps . . . now four 
. . . now two . . . and the sheltering cliff 
on the opposite side was gained. 


12 Where Snow is Sovereign 

With a sigh of relief Elizabeth leaned 
against the perpendicular rock. Now she had 
at last experienced something, something 
great. She had looked into the face of 
death. 

It seemed as if even old Zum Brunnen 
glanced kindly at her, as he gave her 2i sip of 
brandy mixed with water. 

Is there another ice-slope to be crossed? ” 
she asked with secret terror as she returned 
the bottle. 

He shook his head, and Waegi said : 

“ We are going down now, down yonder.” 

He pointed, as he spoke, into the abyss be- 
fore them. 

Down where ... in Heaven’s name? ” 
Elizabeth bent forward. There was nothing 
to be seen except the almost perpendicular 
precipice, whose bottom was concealed by 
long, floating trails of mist. 

“ You surely don’t expect me to fly down 
there? ” she said coolly. 

Caspar Waegi grinned: “Then we must 
turn back and cross the ice-slope again! 
There is no other way.” 

Indeed, there was none. Towering cliffs 
around, and, at the left, the malign surface of 
the glacier. 



MONT BLANC 






Where Snow is Sovereign 13 

Elizabeth sank down and gazed before her 
into vacancy. A pretty situation. For the 
first time repentance seized her. What had 
she to seek up here, in this horrible wilderness, 
which . . . 

Waegi was kneeling beside her, examining 
the knots that fastened the rope under her 
arms. 

“There’s no danger at all now!” he said 
in his rough Bernese German. . . . “ I will 
go first and show the way, and Christen will 
hold the lady by the rope. He has supported 
lots of very different people.” 

While speaking he began to lower himself 
over the edge of the rock and vanished in a 
chasm. 

In a short time there was a pull at the rope. 

“ Let the lady come now! ” called a voice 
from the under world. 

Old Zum Brunnen came to her side and 
pointed down. 

“ First-rate holding places in the chimney,” 
he muttered, showing the chinks and projec- 
tions which were really very numerous in the 
face of the precipice. . . . “ Set your foot 
here . . . then there . . . hold fast with 
your hands . . . leave the alpenstock on 
top.” 


14 Where Snow is Sovereign 

‘‘ I shall break my neck! ” said Elizabeth, 
sitting down on the edge and groping with her 
foot for the first ledge. 

Yes, she really could stand on it perfectly 
well. The second was the same. And her 
hands constantly clutched jutting projections 
of the rock. During this time she had a reas- 
suring feeling that some one was holding her 
between the shoulder-blades. Old Zum Brun- 
nen had crouched on the top of the precipice, 
bracing his feet against a boulder, and slowly 
paid out the rope, always keeping it taut in 
his hands, so that the lady continually found it 
a support. 

Now she was almost at the foot of the cliff. 
Then the world suddenly seemed to end. 
There was not another point, not a ledge, 
nothing in the smooth expanse of rock, eight 
feet high, by which to cling. 

“ Go on,” shouted a hoarse voice above. 

“Yes, for Heaven’s sake, how?” 

Waegi stood below, laughing! “The lady 
must simply let herself slide. The rope will 
hold.” 

And in truth . . . this succeeded too. She 
glided down very easily and, with a merry 
laugh, caught Waegi’s hands. 

“That is magnificent!” she exclaimed ex- 


Where Snow is Sovereign 15 

citedly, gazing around her. What is com- 
ing now? ” 

Now came the “Flatten” strata of rock, 
towering one above another, by whose edges 
and fissures they climbed cautiously down- 
ward. 

When she stopped, waiting until the rope, 
which was continually catching on some point 
of rock, could be released by swinging it free, 
she saw, almost directly under her feet, Caspar 
Waegi’s hat, adorned with a bunch of edel- 
weiss and a cock’s feather, while close above 
her head scraped and groped the huge moun- 
tain shoes of the old man, who climbed, nim- 
ble and noiseless as a grey ape, down the 
smooth, perpendicular cliffs. 

Then Waegi vanished. A snow ravine, 
which, in the form of a triangular crevice, in- 
tersected the mountainside from top to bot- 
tom, received him. She heard him, hanging 
by the rope fastened firmly around a boul- 
der, cutting steps and swearing under his 
breath. 

“ Let the lady come now! ” 

Elizabeth laughed aloud. Every feeling 
of anxiety had vanished, as she set her foot on 
the first of the unusually large steps. The ter- 
rors of the mountains really consisted more 


i6 Where Snow is Sovereign 

in one’s own imagination than in what 
actually . . . 

The softened snow of the third step, on 
which she carelessly put her foot, slipped 
swiftly and spitefully away under it in a wet 
mass. She felt only empty air, and a low cry 
of horror escaped her lips. 

But already she felt the rope under her 
shoulders tighten with a painful jerk and hold 
her suspended. On the cliff above sat old 
Zum Brunnen, supporting her firmly. Not 
a muscle of his thin, spider-like arms, not a 
line of his face quivered. Only a disappro’f- 
ing growl, which sounded something like 
“ Foolish nonsense ” came from his lips. 

Elizabeth again found a prop in the handle 
of the ice-axe, which Waegi held out to her, 
and reached the next step. There she stood 
still. Death had been here again! The insig- 
nificant ball of snow, which had slipped like a 
white rat between the projections of the rock 
and at last lay in some cavity below. 

The mountains would suffer no trifling. 
She had grown pale and grave while working 
her way wearily through the rest of the dif- 
ficult snow couloir by the tense rope, and at 
last, panting for breath, stood on the snow- 
field below. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 17 

The rope buzzed behind her and, with it, 
alpenstock and ice-pick in hand, Zum Brun- 
nen came sliding at marvellous speed along 
the same way. Meanwhile the second guide 
was showing the tourist what was to be done 
in order to glide, according to the most ap- 
proved rules of the art, over the abruptly 
slanting ice-field before them. 

The alpenstock thrust firmly into the snow 
behind, the right hand pressed upon it, the left 
grasping the wood farther down, the upper 
part of the body thrown far backward, the 
heels sunk deeply into the surface — and off! 

The wind whistled around her ears, the 
flying snow whirling before her balled, the 
iron point of the alpenstock creaked as it flew 
whizzing down the mountain, faster and faster, 
until she thought she would lose her breath 
and, while sliding helplessly along, shrieked 
loudly: Stop! ” 

Zum Brunnen behind seized her by the 
neck, like a young puppy, she involuntarily 
thought in laughing resentment, and swung 
her a little aside. The descent grew slower. 
They at last stood still and gazed, flushed and 
panting, up the long white incline on whose 
summit they had been barely a moment be- 
fore. 


1 8 Where Snow is Sovereign 

Their way now continued in a zigzag line, 
over soft snow, into which their feet sank 
deeply while propping their bodies sideways 
on the ice-picks. Again a short halt. The 
guides, striking their picks on the ice before 
them, were examining the extent of a rift in the 
glacier, to detect whose existence at all seemed 
an impossibility to Elizabeth. Then they 
crossed it, one treading cautiously in the foot- 
prints of the other, on to the debris of the 
glacier at the bottom. 

When they stood there, the mountain and 
its terrors were conquered! With her head 
flung back, Elizabeth gazed up at the perpen- 
dicular height, the chaos of frowning rugged 
cliffs, steep snow-covered slopes, and giddy 
rock-chimneys. 

That any human being could descend there 
seemed to her almost incredible. And that 
she herself had just accomplished this miracle 
filled her with a peculiar consciousness of 
quiet strength, a proud joy in existence which 
she had never before experienced. 

Indeed the day was worth having lived. For 
the first time, here amid these mist-veiled, icy 
crags, she saw what one’s own strength, one’s 
own courage means. 

Waegi, who stood beside her, cleared his 


Where Snow is Sovereign 19 

throat and stirred uneasily. ‘‘ Your people 
down in the hotel will be anxious,” he said at 
last. 

“ Why? I left a message that I should 
spend the night in a hut on the Jungfrau.” 

“Yes. And now we have turned back 
from the Jungfrau, and are going to another 
hut. If parties from Rotthal cross the Jung- 
frau to-day, and report in Grindelwald that 
they met no one in the hut, people may think 
that some accident has happened to us in the 
fog.” 

Zum Brunnen nodded, and Waegi went on: 
“ You can easily cross the glacier with Chris- 
ten only. It will be better for me to run down. 
Besides, nothing can be done to-morrow in 
this weather! ” 

So it was arranged. He unfastened the 
rope and set off at a rapid trot in order to 
reach the village, four leagues distant, along 
the glacier cliffs, before darkness closed in, 
and Elizabeth ascended the moraine alone 
with the old man. 

The slippery rubble rolled away under her 
feet. At every step upward she sank back 
some distance till at last the guide assisted 
her by holding out the handle of his pick. 
She grasped it with both hands, while he took 


20 Where Snow is Sovereign 

the alpenstock, and allowed herself to be 
dragged up to the edge of the glacier, here 
almost level and wholly free from snow. 

From this point it rose for leagues in the 
mountain solitude. Where its slope became 
sharper it seemed as if it had been gnawed 
into bizarre shapes. The clouds of mist drifted 
sluggishly over the riven precipices and the 
peaks, a damp grey drizzle filled the air, 
chilled by the icy vapor from the glacier 
chasms, a vague blending, melting away, and 
re-forming of misty shapes, through which 
rose constantly, in the solemn stillness, the 
plashing of the milky glacier water. 

“ Like a world of magic! ” thought Eliza- 
beth, as she moved lightly over the ice behind 
the old man. 

The guide stopped and pointed in front of 
him. 

There, a hundred paces away, stood the 
goal of their walk, the lonely club hut. 

The little hillock of rubble rose like an 
island from the masses of ice whose rigid 
waves surged round it on three sides, while on 
the fourth the mountain towered toward the 
sky. 

On the mound, like a small black heap, 
stood the hut, poorly built of stone, weather- 


21 


Where Snow is Sovereign 

beaten, pressing against two huge boulders as 
if seeking protection. 

But before the hut appeared a black object, 
moving slowly to and fro. 

Horrible!” said Elizabeth. There are 
some people already. At least a tourist with 
two guides! How shall we all find room in 
that tiny house? ” 

Old Zum Brunnen had raised his hand over 
his eyes and peered out from beneath it 
keenly as he walked on in silence. 

Now his falcon glance seemed to have 
recognized the stranger. 

The gentleman is alone! ” he muttered. 
Elizabeth looked after the dark figure 
which was just disappearing into the hut. 

Do you know him? ” 

The old man made no direct answer. 

The gentleman goes out without guides,” 
he replied, tightening the rope which, con- 
trary to all the rules of the glacier, was trailing 
on the ground. 

But isn’t that dangerous? ” 

The grey-haired guide turned to her — it 
seemed as though a smile was lurking amid 
the lines and wrinkles round his toothless 
mouth. 

He’s a thorough gentleman! ” he said in 


122 Where Snow is Sovereign 

a louder tone than usual, and added almost 
solemnly: “He’s fit for the Gross Schreck- 
horn.” 

“ And he’s wonderfully lucky too,” thought 
Elizabeth, sticking her alpenstock vigorously 
into the crystalline ice as she walked forward 
— “ that, contrary to all expectation, the so- 
ciety of a passably pretty and tolerably young 
woman will fall to his lot in this horrible 
solitude! But first we’ll see whether he de- 
serves this good fortune.” 


CHAPTER II 


It was almost dark when they opened the 
creaking door of the club hut. There was a 
light inside. A candle, flickering in the 
draught, cast its trembling rays upon the mis- 
erable interior. The huge straw bed, con- 
fined at the bottom by boards, and adorned on 
top with half a dozen rolled-up horse-blankets, 
occupied probably three-quarters of the space, 
the remainder containing the roughly-made 
table and wooden chairs, the tiny stove with 
its comfortable red glow, and the cupboard 
which held the extra ropes, a lantern, the 
medicine chest, and all kinds of cooking 
utensils. 

A broad-shouldered, powerful figure rose 
from the table. 

Good-evening,” said Elizabeth in a clear, 
ringing voice as she entered, here come some 
belated guests.” 

“Good-evening, Fraulein ...” replied 
the stranger coldly, with a slightly South 
German accent, but his bow was that of the 
man accustomed to society. Then, giving 
23 


24 Where Snow is Sovereign 

his hand to old Zum Brunnen, he said 
brusquely: “ Come now — what nonsense is 
this?” 

The old man looked at him enquiringly. 

“ To climb down the Krahenwand with an 
inexperienced lady! . . . Do you suppose 
I have no glasses with me? ” 

Old Christen did not seem to have a per- 
fectly clear conscience. He was fumbling at 
his bag, and growled : “ The lady tramps over 
the mountains very well.” 

I saw that . . . 1 ” replied the mo- 
rose gentleman, “ for all that it’s sheer 
folly ...” 

Elizabeth looked at him curiously. A man 
between thirty-five and forty, he wore the 
dress of the English Alpinist, a belted woollen 
coat, woollen knee-breeches, and long gla- 
cier stockings, through which the movement 
of his huge muscles could be distinctly 
seen. He evidently possessed great physical 
strength. 

But he certainly could not be called hand- 
some. A stern, bearded face, on which rested 
an expression of sullen defiance, a deeply- 
furrowed brow, and beneath it a pair of large 
grey eyes which sometimes flashed keenly 
through the gold-framed glasses, then, when 


Where Snow is Sovereign 25 

he removed them, had a strangely wearied 
expression. 

Old Christen nudged his employer and 
handed her from the bag a bright silk shirt- 
waist, a pair of woollen stockings, and some 
thin house shoes. 

Of course she was embarrassed to receive 
such articles in the stranger’s presence. But 
he was already at the door. 

“ Give yourself plenty of time to dress, 
Fraulein,” he said, “ the evening air will do 
Christen and myself no harm. Only . . . 
to satisfy etiquette ” — he again made a slight, 
reluctant bow — “ my name is Dr. Baron von 
Giindlingen ...” He left the room with 
the guide as he spoke. 

Outside the hut they stood leaning against 
a boulder in the dusk, lighted one a cigar, the 
other his pipe, and gazed thoughtfully down 
at the floating mists of the glacier. 

For a long time neither spoke. 

At last the gentleman, with an angry glance 
backward, said: “Who is she?” 

Old Christen remained silent a still longer 
time, sucking diligently at the short pipe 
which he turned between his sunken jaws. 
When he finally made up his mind to speak, 
he only answered stupidly: “Yes, she’s all 


26 Where Snow is Sovereign 

right.” For he knew nothing more about his 
lady. 

Meanwhile she was changing her clothes. 
Her heart throbbed violently as she glanced 
around the rude, dimly-lighted room. 

Was all this really no dream? Was she 
really at nightfall in the midst of a wilder- 
ness of snow and ice, leagues from any human 
habitation? There was no doubt of it. Out- 
side, far up the snow-clad heights, she heard 
the moaning of the wind, and before the door 
the heavy footsteps of the two men who, to 
keep warm, were pacing slowly to and fro. 

Elizabeth hurried her toilet. True, there 
was little to be done. She could not help 
laughing when she thought that, at this hour, 
down below in Grindelwald, she would have 
been putting on, with the help of her maid, a 
toilette for the table d’hote dinner. While 
here . . . even with the best will, little 
change or improvement could be made in the 
plain woollen costume, short skirt, reaching 
to the knee and full trousers below it, the 
leather gaiters and low shoes. 

She put down the curling irons which she 
had already heated in the candle. After all, 
it was scarcely worth while! Her companion 


Where Snow is Sovereign 27 

in the hut did not appear to be a special ad- 
mirer of women. At least, she had imagined 
she read in his features anything but pleasure 
at her arrival. 

Besides, she did not want to keep the men 
waiting long. It was so still, s.o deadly still 
outside. What if they should go away — leave 
her behind alone in this awful solitude. . . . 
A vague terror overpowered her. Running 
to the door, she flung it wide open. 

Are you there? ” she called in a quavering 
voice into the darkness. Directly after the 
men entered. Old Christen squatted on the 
floor again and began to unpack the provisions 
and the tin bottles of wine they had brought. 
The stranger sat down by the stove on which 
a pot of snow-water was boiling, smoked his 
cigar, first obtaining Elizabeth’s permission 
by a look of enquiry, and stared thoughtfully 
into vacancy. 

Her striking blond beauty did not seem to 
have any existence for him. Only at rare in- 
tervals did a careless glance glide indifferently 
in her direction. 

At the end of a quarter of an hour, the 
Baron rose suddenly and drew from his 
pocket an oblong, grayish article, which he 


28 Where Snow is Sovereign 

crumbled into pieces and threw into the boil- 
ing water. 

The odor of pea soup instantly spread 
through the room. 

Elizabeth looked up longingly. She was 
hungry, and was considering whether she 
might venture to ask the taciturn mountaineer 
for a little of his soup, when the latter came 
to the table with two plates of it and, seating 
himself, pushed one courteously toward her. 

Is this for me? ” she said coldly. 

He nodded. It is better than what old 
Christen is cooking for you. And you must 
be hungry.” 

This was true. She accepted the bread he 
offered and began to eat eagerly, nay, she per- 
mitted him to go to the stove and fill her plate 
a second time. 

Then old Christen brought the chicken, 
which was the principal part of her pro- 
vision for the expedition. 

Elizabeth offered some to her companion. 
But he silently declined, contenting himself 
with a bit of cheese, which he took from his 
knapsack. 

Meanwhile he glanced at the glass which 
she was just filling with wine from the bottle. 

That’s good for nothing! ” he said. Claret 


Where Snow is Sovereign 29 

in the mountains . . . eh . . . Christen 
. . . why didn’t they give you some white 
wine at the hotel?” 

We have it,” growled the old man, draw- 
ing out a second large bottle. Elizabeth 
allowed it to be poured out, glancing mean- 
time at her neighbor with mingled anger and 
amusement. “ You seem to be thoroughly ac- 
customed to command! ” she said pointedly. 

The Baron shrugged his broad shoulders. 
“ When one sees so much inexperience . . . 
but on my own estates no one opposes me 
. . . that is certainly true ... I am 
master.” 

Where are your estates? ” 

Over on the Main,” he answered curtly, 
and again both were silent. While they 
mutely went on with their meal, Elizabeth 
cast a keen glance at his hand. No gold ring 
appeared. So he must be unmarried. 

He misunderstood the look. You will not 
have any of the cheese,” he said, wrapping the 
piece which was left in paper, it is not good 
for a delicate stomach. And the stomach is 
always the first thing that rebels in the High 
Alps.” 

Old Christen had cleared away the dishes 
and now stood sullenly beside his mistress to 


30 Where Snow is Sovereign 

receive further orders. This was his duty as 
a guide. But the morose old fellow did not 
seem to be very comfortable in the thought of 
playing the part of a young lady’s groom of 
the chambers. 

Elizabeth looked at him and laughed. 

Lie down and go to sleep. I shall need 
nothing more.” 

Zum Brunnen did not wait to be told twice, 
but crawled at once into the rustling straw and 
rolled himself to a shapeless ball in the corner. 
Now the two sat together at the table alone. 
The candle between them flickered in the 
draughts of wind that came through the 
chinks of the wall. Nothing was heard out- 
side except the rippling of the water, growing 
less and less as the warmth of the day dimin- 
ished, and the snoring of the old man in his 
corner. 

Elizabeth could not help laughing as she 
looked at him. He had wound about his 
head a scarlet woollen cloth, which formed 
a striking contrast to the brown, leathery tint 
of the shrivelled, beardless face. “ He looks 
exactly like an old woman! ” she said thought- 
fully to her companion. He made a silent 
nod of assent, and again they sat mute. Eliza- 
beth glanced at the clock. It was just half- 


Where Snow is Sovereign 31 

past seven. This might be a pleasant even- 
ing .. . 

Suddenly the Baron fixed his eyes upon her. 

“ Only tell me,” he said, “ what you seek 
here? ” 

She threw her head back with a swift ges- 
ture, her blue eyes flashing. 

“What I seek here?” she cried. “I am 
seeking liberty! I want for once to be my- 
self!” 

He shook his head. “ That is too high for 
me.” 

“ Then listen,” she said, bending forward 
across the table and looking him full in the 
face, “ I will explain it to you. Last winter 
I saw a play ... by Ibsen . . . where 
the heroine suddenly stretches out her arms 
crying, ^ I should like, for just once in my life, 
to be able to say may the devil take you all ! ’ 
You see, that is just it! I, too, would like to 
say may the devil take you all. . . . There 
are hours when one is wearied to death of 
everything . . . this everlasting modera- 
tion, half-doing, half-enjoying, to which we 
poor well-bred women are condemned. In 
the street we must take little mincing steps, at 
table drink in tiny sips, in the drawing-room 
talk and laugh only half-aloud — all that is 


32 Where Snow is Sovereign 

complete and great is forbidden to us. ^ That 
is unfeminine,’ people say. Good Heavens! 
We are human beings too! At least I myself 
am a thoroughly normal human being, just as 
good as a man! Why need I pretend that 
every rude wind, every rough word would kill 
me? I want to experience something, too ! So 
I took advantage of a favorable opportunity 
to escape, and came here among the moun- 
tains ...” 

She had spoken eagerly, a faint flush tinged 
her cheeks, and her eyes sparkled. 

Her companion looked at her with a good- 
natured, but mocking smile. 

“And what now?” he said. “Now you 
have only the one desire: oh, if only this hor- 
rible night were over, and I once more down 
below in my hotel.” 

She shook her head gravely. “ No, that 
really is not true. I have had grand experi- 
ences to-day. It seems like an eternity: I 
feel as though, since this morning, I have be- 
come a different creature. I have looked 
death in the face. I have accomplished, by 
my own strength, things which I would have 
believed impossible. I have conquered my 
fear and my weakness, and thereby — you 
understand — acquired a sort of self-respect, 


Where Snow is Sovereign 33 

the feeling I sought but could never find, the 
feeling that one possesses a distinct personal- 
ity, instead of being continually held in tutel- 
age and guided by others, and then, by way 
of consolation, stand before a mirror and say: 
‘ Well, if I am nothing else, I am pretty.’ 
This may content some women, but I have a 
consciousness of dreariness, dissatisfaction, a 
longing to accomplish something . . . well, 
of course . . . my deeds of Alpine 

heroism are not yet great.” She broke off 
abruptly and stared thoughtfully at the 
candle-light. 

The Baron moved his chair nearer. 
“ Why,” he said, smiling, “ I wouldn’t have 
believed it ... so the mountains say some- 
thing to you? ” 

She gazed at him wonderingly : I feel as if 
I were bewitched.” 

“ Yet to look at you one would think that 
you were leading a gay, careless, comfortable 
life from day to day, without troubling your- 
self at all about what ...” 

We do live so,” she interrupted with a bit- 
ter curl of the lip ; I believe we are very use- 
less people. I have always dimly felt it and 
here, in this solitude, I clearly perceive how 
little we are doing of any value ...” 


34 Where Snow is Sovereign 

The Baron had risen and was tramping 
heavily up and down the hut. 

“In solitude . . .’’he said slowly, paus- 
ing in front of her, “yes, Fraulein — solitude 
is a mighty power. Believe a solitary, abso- 
lutely solitary man like myself, the wilderness 
here is like a mirror. In it we behold 
ourselves, and it seems as if every stone, 
every atom of dust was crying out to us: 
‘ See, this is what you are ’ . . . Well for 
him who can behold his reflected image 
calmly! ” 

His face had changed. Gloom and indig- 
nation rested on it, and there was an expression 
of intense emotion in the large eyes gazing 
fixedly into vacancy. 

Elizabeth raised her long lashes. “ I am 
sorry that I have disturbed you,” she said 
shyly. 

“ You do not disturb me! ” He let his mus- 
cular figure drop into the chair beside her, 
and was perfectly calm again. “ But all the 
trifling glacier loafers, the idle pack who wan- 
der the mountains like monkeys at a fair — are 
enough to disgust a man. I grow as rough as 
a bean-straw.” 

“ I noticed it,” she replied with a merry 
laugh. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 

“ They feel nothing,” he went on fiercely. 

On the other hand, whoever beholds the 
mountains with open eyes — you are perfectly 
right there — about your vague impulse to see 
and experience something. It is our fault that 
women are not more sensible. We take every- 
thing grand and lofty, everything terrible, out 
of their lives, we treat them like children, like 
dolls, instead of raising them and giving them 
a true human soul, and then we wonder ” — he 
drew out a cigar and thoughtfully cut off the 
tip — “ that they are what they are! ” he added 
quietly, throwing it into a corner. 

“But all are not sol” said Elizabeth 
angrily. 

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “ The 
few who might be different cannot. Besides, 
who knows whether any one of them is really 
in earnest — I don’t believe it.” 

He was silent, puffing huge clouds of smoke 
into the dimly-lighted room. And Eliza- 
beth distinctly felt that women had already 
played a prominent and no happy part 
in the life of this gloomy wanderer of the 
glaciers. 

After a time he rose suddenly, opened the 
door of the hut, glanced outside, and then 
beckoned gently, almost mysteriously, for her 


36 Where Snow is Sovereign 

to come out. She did so, and stood motionless 
as if blinded. 

The whole glacier landscape lay before her, 
bathed in the light of the full moon. A bright 
bluish radiance hovered over the glittering 
ice, the warm white of the covering of snow. 
The chasms were relieved in rough black 
lines, running in all directions over the sur- 
face. A thin white mist floated above them, 
and in this icy vapor of the glacier the half- 
shrouded peaks, boulders, and cliffs of this 
world of ice and snow assumed the fantastic, 
unreal forms of the shapes of a fairy tale. 
Above the expanse the mountains towered 
aloft in the background. The fields of snow 
rose like large white clouds in the dark blue 
night sky, the black outlines of the rocks and 
stone-covered slopes surrounding them did not 
appear until a closer inspection. The faintly 
illumined peaks seemed to tower into the very 
heavens. Close beside and above the irregu- 
lar hillocks of snow the stars glittered with 
wintry clearness, and the full moon sailed 
through the sky, queen of this silent, mo- 
tionless dream-world woven of blue, misty 
vapors. 

The air was strangely soft and mild, fan- 
ning Elizabeth’s brow caressingly. The 





«•* 




? * 






I?' 


^'14 -• 


MER DE GLACE 








Where Snow is Sovereign 37 

warm, ardent breath in the midst of the frozen 
wilderness seemed unnatural. 

Singular sounds sometimes echoed from the 
eternal snows above. A long-drawn sigh 
when the wind passed through the rocky 
chasms, a jubilant whistle when it swept freely 
across the glaciers — cries dying away like 
human voices — like the growling of angry 
beasts. Then all was still again. 

Elizabeth’s eyes grew moist, and her breath- 
ing labored. “Is it beautiful?” she heard 
her companion’s voice ask beside her. She 
shook her head. 

“More than beautiful! It is grand! It 
takes all that is base and petty out of our 
hearts ! ” 

The Baron averted his head. “ I was just 
thinking exactly what you have said,” he an- 
swered curtly. 

Their eyes met, and they knew in this mo- 
ment that they understood each other. A 
moan rose from the glacier above and a 
gust of wind, glowing and thrilling like a 
giant’s breath, swept down encompassing 
them. 

They did not utter another word until they 
again entered the hut where old Christen was 
still snoring quietly. 


38 Where Snow is Sovereign 

While Elizabeth sat down her companion 
drew forth a small bottle and weighed it in his 
hand. “ I was going to drink it on the sum- 
mit to-morrow,” he said, “ but I see that the 
weather will be bad, so — that nothing may be 
lost ” 

He filled two glasses with champagne 
and gave her one. “ Drink! You deserve 
it.” 

Really? ” She obediently emptied the 
glass. I would never have believed that you 
would entertain such a disturber of the peace 
with champagne.” 

He looked at her and smiled. “ Enjoy it ” 
— he filled the glass a second time — and 
don’t forget your first adventure in the moun- 
tains.” 

^‘Nor my protector.” Raising the goblet, 
she pledged him. 

He nodded. “You can accept my protec- 
tion. I am an old man compared to you! 
How old are you? Twenty-four — twenty- 
five — somewhere about that age. You see, I 
am at least ten or twelve years older than you, 
Fraulein.” 

“But a bachelor!” She glanced at his 
hand, then, with a merry, questioning look, 
into his face. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 39 

He met her gaze with grave, troubled eyes, 
and shook his head. I have been married.” 

Elizabeth’s features lost their mirthful ex- 
pression. 

And she is dead? Alas! You poor hus- 
band!” - 

He had risen and was crossing the room 
with his vigorous, heavy tread to get the gla- 
cier rope. ‘‘ She is not dead,” he answered 
carelessly, busying himself with the rope; so 
far she is getting along very comfortably in 
the world.” 

Then he was a divorced man! Elizabeth 
now understood many things, and looked on 
quietly while the Baron fastened one end of 
the rope to beams and hooks in the wall in 
such a way that it extended over the straw 
bed. Across the rope he hung one of the 
woollen blankets, thus forming, with the two 
walls of the hut, a small alcove in which 
he placed a leather pillow and another 
coverlet. 

“ There — that is your little room,” he said , 
carelessly. “ Now creep in and lie down. 
There is another day coming to-morrow. I’ll 
put out the light. Then you can make your- 
self perfectly comfortable.” 

The hut grew dark. The straw rustled for 


40 Where Snow is Sovereign 

a while, then nothing was heard except the old 
guide’s breathing. 

Good-night! ” called a clear voice from 
the alcove. 

Good-night! ” the Baron answered, and 
they closed their eyes. 

But both lay awake for a long time. 


CHAPTER III 


In the middle of the night Elizabeth awoke 
suddenly. A vague noise had roused her. 

Starting up, she gazed sleepily into the 
darkness. Where was she? Around her im- 
penetrable gloom that could almost be touched 
with the hands, a cold, damp atmosphere, rus- 
tling straw, a coarse horse-blanket; above her 
head — it must be on the low roof of the club 
hut — a deafening rattling and clattering, with 
which blended the creaking of the firmly 
closed wooden shutters and the roaring of the 
wind outside. 

What is it? ” she cried anxiously. 

Then she found that her companion in the 
hut was awake too. 

There is a storm/’ his deep voice an- 
swered, “hail and wind and rain. The High 
Alps are ungallant. They have no considera- 
tion even for the fairest ladies! ” 

Elizabeth wrapped herself closer in the 
blanket. “ I really feel a little frightened,” 
she said desperately. 

A loud laugh rose from the darkness by 
her side. 


41 


42 


Where Snow is Sovereign 

“Afraid? You? Well— of what? ” 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ You are not afraid,” answered the bass 
voice positively from the other side of the 
dividing blanket. “You merely imagine it. 
If you have another attack, remember that I 
am with you, and so nothing can possibly hap- 
pen to you.” 

Elizabeth uttered a sigh of relief. Yes, that 
was true. She was in good care there. The 
strong, fearless man over yonder would pro- 
tect her against the mountains to which 
he himself, in his repose and strength 
and solitariness, bore so strong a resem- 
blance. 

The hailstorm passed as swiftly as it had 
come. The rattling on the shingles of the 
roof died away, and instead began the lulling, 
monotonous plashing of the rain. Elizabeth 
drew another long breath, then she fell asleep 
again. 

It seems as if one of these rainy nights in the 
Alps will never end. Hour after hour passes. 
The hands of the clock point to seven, point to 
eight, yet scarcely a pallid ray of daylight 
penetrates the window panes into the dusky 
room. Sometimes it appears as though even 


Where Snow is Sovereign 43 

this faint glimmer had faded and would soon 
give place to darkness. 

The Baron had risen long before, arranged 
his dress, and lighted a cigar. Now he sat 
by the table, gazing intently at a place where, 
during the night, part of the blanket, slipping 
from the rope, had left an opening. Behind 
this gap lay a pale, beautiful face, framed 
by loose golden hair. Resting with closed 
eyes on the straw, it might have belonged to a 
dead woman. But sometimes a dream made 
her red, half-parted lips quiver, and he heard 
her low, calm breathing. 

For the space of an hour he kept his eyes 
fixed with deep interest on this unusual spec- 
tacle. 

Old Christen was also stirring in his corner. 
He sat in the straw with his legs crossed, pull- 
ing at his old pipe, sometimes blinking across 
at the gentleman, and then grinning mysteri- 
ously. 

Then Elizabeth made a movement, stretch- 
ing out her arm as if about to wake. 

The Baron started up, beckoned to old Zum 
Brunnen, and both men left the hut. 

When Elizabeth rose, tied her shoes, and 
beat the straw from her clothing, she felt a 


44 Where Snow is Sovereign 

strange sense of discomfort. The dirty, ice- 
cold hut, the tumbled, by no means absolutely 
clean straw bed, the acrid tobacco smoke, 
which rose in clouds to the ceiling, the soiled 
plates and dishes, with their cheese rinds and 
sausage skins, which were piled, coated with 
dust, beside the stove, the ropes, the pick- 
axes, and all the other articles in the corners, 
the box of bandages above — made her heart 
sink, while hurriedly arranging her hair be- 
fore the dim mirror. 

Then she opened the door and went out. 

A winter landscape received her.~ All 
around an expanse of white as far as the eye 
could penetrate the dense clouds of mist. The 
remains of the snow lay up to the very walls 
of the hut and, amid the crevices and furrows 
of the rubble, still lingered the hailstones 
swept together by the wind during the storm 
of the previous night. 

The whistling of the wind could still be 
heard through the floating mist. Single white 
flakes, mixed with the fine rain, constantly 
sank lower. It was bitterly cold. 

The two men standing in front of the hut, 
discussing the prospects for the weather, had 
wrapped themselves closely in their cloaks. 
When Elizabeth approached, the grey-haired 


Where Snow is Sovereign 45 

guide silently held out his hand, a huge, 
brown, horny palm, in which her delicate 
white fingers completely vanished. His com- 
panion laughed aloud. 

Good-morning! ” he cried; “ the spirit of 
adventure doesn’t seem quite so eager to- 
day.” 

“ Oh, yes 1 ” She hesitated. Only first — 
is there no water for bathing? ” 

“No!” he answered. “Whoever washes 
during a glacier trip has only himself to blame 
if he returns with chapped lips and cracks in 
his skin. And do you want to go about the 
rest of your life with a red nose? ” 

“ I would rather die,” she said, shuddering. 

“ Then go back into the hut,” the Baron 
replied. “ Have you any cologne? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ That’s good — one can wash capitally with 
it.” 

Elizabeth followed his advice. Then the 
men rapped on the panes and received per- 
mission to enter. 

She had wrapped herself in a blanket on 
account of the cold and, crouching on a stool, 
watched sleepily, with an occasional yawn, 
the preparation of the coffee. 

It was really very comical. And the hope 


46 Where Snow is Sovereign 

of soon getting something hot to drink filled 
her with fresh courage. 

Something went gliding constantly to and 
fro before the windows. It was a little red- 
dish-brown weasel, which flitted with light 
bounds over rocks and snow, feasting on the 
chicken bones which had been thrown away. 

The creature has lived here two years al- 
ready,” said her sullen friend from the stove. 
“ I see it every time I come to the hut. But 
what it can find to eat when the season is 
over. Heaven only knows.” 

Old Christen had swallowed his coffee, and 
was gazing intently at the fog outside, which 
only lightened occasionally when a gust of 
wind blew. Then the misty squadrons crept 
back over the glacier like a troop of startled 
ghosts, one or two tattered grey clouds driving 
swiftly after them in the gale like stragglers, 
and for a moment the mountains on the oppo- 
site side appeared in view. 

At last Zum Brunnen went out to investi- 
gate, by means of a queer sniffing of the air, 
the chances of a change in the weather. 

Meanwhile the others had arranged a prim- 
itive breakfast. 

Elizabeth did not feel quite comfortable, 
when she took her seat opposite to the Baron in 


Where Snow is Sovereign 47 

the dusky morning light. With her pallid, 
worn face, bits of straw in her hair, scarcely 
washed, and half combed, she knew she must 
look exactly like a gypsy. 

The situation was certainly both peculiar 
and embarrassing, especially after making 
such rapid strides toward acquaintanceship 
the day before. 

The Baron, too, seemed somewhat out of 
humor. He sat in silence, smoking. 

“ Do you spend the whole summer this way 
among the mountains?” Elizabeth asked at 
last, to begin the conversation. 

He nodded. As soon as the harvest is in 
until late in the autumn I stay at all the Swiss 
club huts. I no longer go into the Tyrol. 
There will soon be hotels with waiters, ele- 
vators, and electric lights. And I want to 
be alone.” 

But when you can no longer stay in the 
mountains, what do you do for the rest of the 
year? ” 

Oh,” he said, puffing clouds of smoke from 
his cigar into the air, “ in the winter I have 
hunting — fine hunting for red deer and wild 
boars. And in spring and early summer, as 
a land-owner, I have plenty to do in the fields. 
Time does not seem long to me.” 


48 Where Snow is Sovereign 

Elizabeth looked at him steadily. But 
time would be very long to me,” she said in a 
clear voice, “ if I did not trouble myself at all 
about my fellow-mortals. I think we ought. 
Not for the sake of amusement — that is cer- 
tainly often doubtful, but it is our duty to be 
something to other people.” 

“ If they are anything to us.” He thought- 
fully filled his cup with coffee, and broke some 
bread into it. But that’s just it. There are 
things in the world which, if we once experi- 
ence them, we no longer understand our fel- 
low-beings, and desire to have nothing more to 
do with them, either for good or evil.” 

His composure vexed her. And suppose 
everybody was such a misanthrope,” she asked 
excitedly, “ what would the world be like 
then? Just think yourself what ...” 

The Baron shook his head and looked her 
full in the face. “ Believe me,” he said slowly, 
‘‘ we do the misanthropes injustice. They are 
usually people who have not thought too ill, 
but too well of mankind, who have re- 
garded their fellow-mortals too seriously and 
too deeply. They do not deserve it. Misan- 
thropy proceeds from human love ! Or even — 
it may be one and the same thing; it is love 
that finds nothing worthy of it.” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 49 

Gazing indififerently out of the window at 
the drizzle of rain and snow, he veiled his 
shaggy head in a cloud of tobacco smoke. Eliz- 
abeth did not know exactly what to answer. 

So lonely a mortal must be very unhappy,” 
she said softly. 

We grow used to it,” he answered curtly, 
‘‘ and then we are content. Besides, no one 
is unhappy who still has nature. Yonder 
mountains will always be faithful to me. 
They neither deceive nor lie. They do not 
flatter. They possess my full regard.” 

“ I can understand that ” — she hesitated — 

and it also happens that a man wants to know 
nothing more about women. Yet he has other 
men — I mean at least one good friend 
who ” 

She started and paused abruptly, so uncanny 
was the flash of wrath that passed over his face 
with the rapidity of lightning, while his eyes 
glowed with furious hate. He was actually 
terrible at that moment. But his features 
quickly regained their usual calmness. 

“Friendship?” he said. “Do the people 
you know really believe in that legendary crea- 
ture? It is, of course, a mere nursery tale. 
True, there was a time when I was little 
wiser. Then I, too, had a friend. It is now 


50 Where Snow is Sovereign 

five years ago. And since that hour I have 
said to myself: ^ Curses on whoever relies on 
human beings! ’ ” 

Elizabeth bowed her head. She could 
imagine what had robbed the man before her 
of all joy in existence. 

Meanwhile he had risen and gone to the 
window. “ That is the consequence,” he said, 
half laughing, half angrily, “ when a silent 
fellow like myself, who for weeks has scarcely 
uttered a word, is induced to chatter. Things 
are said which cannot interest you in the least, 
and are not at all suited to your youth and 
beauty.” 

“ I have listened to you very gladly,” re- 
plied Elizabeth. “ Here in the mountains one 
person comes nearer to another. Just imagine 
if we had met at the hotel table down at the 
Bear! What useless rubbish we should have 
talked about the weather, the food, and 
Heaven knows what.” 

^^Yet that would have been better.” Ap- 
proaching and clasping her hand, he gazed 
down at her with his grey eyes . . . For- 
get all I have said — it is folly! And I wish 
you one thing from my heart: a good, sensible 
husband, to whom you will be no plaything, 
but a faithful friend. Then some day you will 


Where Snow is Sovereign 51 

laugh at a poor misanthrope like myseJf, and 
rightly.” 

Elizabeth hesitated a moment. Then, with 
swift resolution, she opened her lips as if to 
confess something. But old Christen entered. 

“ We’d better be moving,” he growled. 
“ The weather will only get worse. And if a 
snowstorm should set in, we couldn’t move 
along the rocks with ^ her ’ at all.” 

He looked at Elizabeth, and the Baron 
nodded thoughtfully. “ We must see how we 
are to manage to get her over the Bander with 
the new-fallen snow,” he said. 

“ She has plenty of courage,” the old man 
answered, and began to clean the plates, sweep 
the floor, and put the hut in order again. At 
last all this was finished, the ashes emptied out, 
the fire carefully extinguished to the last spark, 
the straw shaken up, and the names entered 
in the visitors’ book. 

Have you rubbed your face thoroughly 
with vaseline?” asked the mountaineer. 
^‘Yes? Then we will go!” 

They descended the stone-covered slope to 
the glacier. There the rope was brought out. 

“Are we coming to dangerous places?” 
asked Elizabeth, holding up her arms to have 
it adjusted. But her companion only said, 


52 Where Snow is Sovereign 

“ You will be down below in four hours,” and 
carefully fastened the knots. 

They crossed the glacier, with which she 
had become familiar the day before, without 
difficulty. Then, turning to the right, the 
little party entered a wilderness of boulders 
and crumbling rocks, extending between the 
ice-river and the precipice. This strip of 
debris became narrower and narrower. At 
last it ended. Before them the mountain fell 
sheer to the glacier. Only a narrow edge, 
covered with dazzling, new-fallen snow, ex- 
tended as a shelf scarcely a foot wide along 
the weather-beaten rock, sometimes vanishing 
in its perpendicular chasms, appearing again 
on the other side of the chimney. 

“Are we to cross there? ” asked Elizabeth 
calmly. But her heart beat faster. 

The Baron turned to her. “ You went over 
worse places yesterday. If it were not for the 
new-fallen snow, we should have a clear pas- 
sage here. The rock ledges only seem terrible 
to beginners — it is an old story.” 

They groped and pushed their way for- 
ward cautiously, feeling at every step in the 
slippery, treacherous new-fallen snow for the 
solid rock, and grasping with both hands the 
projections of the overhanging cliff. At first 


Where Snow is Sovereign 53 

Elizabeth had gazed fixedly at the footprints 
before her. Now, growing bolder, she ven- 
tured one look into the gulf at her right. 

But she was obliged to stand still at once and 
turn her face toward the rock, which her 
fingers clenched convulsively. It was not 
because she had grown dizzy! But — those 
hideous crevices in the glacier down in the 
depth below, waiting for her like the yawning 
jaws of hungry beasts . . . 

The Baron turned. “ Look straight ahead,” 
he cried angrily; “ it won’t do to coquet with 
the glacier below! I have lio inclination to 
break my neck on your account! Nor Chris- 
ten either! ” 

His roughness gave her fresh courage. She 
was now standing at a place where the ledge, 
at a sharp angle, entered a chimney and led 
out again on the other side. Here a step must 
be taken over the gulf yawning five hundred 
feet beneath. 

The Baron was already across. “ For- 
ward! ” he shouted. A good jump! ” 

Elizabeth drew a long breath and sprang 
over. Almost before her feet touched the 
rock, he had drawn her toward him with a 
powerful jerk, so that, pressing closely against 
him, she stood firm. 


54 Where Snow is Sovereign 

Old Christen, glancing absently around him, 
crossed the chasm with a long, shambling 
stride, as we step over a gutter, and they went 
on along the steep declivities to the last cliff. 

Iron pegs had been fastened into this to aid 
the descent. But the hard, smooth, glassy 
layer of ice, which to-day covered the metal, 
made it difficult. 

Only grasp firmly,” Elizabeth heard the 
Baron’s voice below as, hanging to the ledges 
of rock, and slipping, gfoping with hands and 
feet, panting for breath under the tension of 
the rope, she struggled downward. Grip the 
iron as though you meant to crush it. That’s 
right! ” 

She slipped a little and struck his neck with 
the tip of her boot. “ Excuse me! ” she cried, 
laughing. 

The Baron made no answer, but swung him- 
self over the edge of a rock, which fell 
abruptly ten feet down to the debris of the 
glacier. 

“ There! ” he said from below, wiping the 
perspiration from his brow, “ that was the 
last station. You cannot come down until you 
have granted me your forgiveness!” 

“ For what? ” She was sitting on the edge 
of the rock, dangling her feet impatiently. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 55 

“For roaring at you so angrily just now! 
But in the mountains that is the best remedy, 
if any one is timid.” 

Elizabeth laughed merrily, cast a swift 
glance backward to see whether Christen’s 
rope would be long enough, and jumped down 
so quickly that the Baron had just time to open 
his arms and catch her. 

She rested an instant on his heart, his strong 
arms held her light figure firmly, and their 
eyes met in a swift, startled glance. 

Then he let her slip gently to the ground. 
“ There, that is over,” he said bluntly, avert- 
ing his gaze, as she did hers. “ Now an hour’s 
tramp over the glacier! Then we shall reach 
the chalet, and the poor soul can rest.” 

It was a strange walk. Not a single word 
was exchanged between the pair as they moved 
over the ice through the mist and rain, and 
more than once old Zum Brunnen was obliged 
to send a warning shout from below. The two 
seemed completely absorbed in the thoughts 
which had so strangely and suddenly filled 
their minds. 

They descended on long ladders from the 
glacier to the little mountain inn. 

Numerous alpenstocks were leaning against 


56 Where Snow is Sovereign 

the veranda, a buzz of voices and clinking 
of glasses echoed from within; in the kitchen 
before the blazing fire sat a number of guides, 
principally old men who were no longer able 
to make the more difficult expeditions. The 
light dickered over their weather-beaten faces 
and brown figures. 

The chalet was over-filled. Glacier loung- 
ers of all nations, ladies and children, all 
sorts of people who had come here wishing 
to pay a safe visit to the ice-region, were 
crowded together complaining of the bad 
weather. The retreat to Grindelwald was 
cut off. 

Torrents of water were pouring over the 
bridle-path, the landlady reported, as she set 
bread and wine before the High Alp moun- 
taineers — no one could get through until the 
rain had ceased for several hours. 

This was a fine prospect. Elizabeth and 
the Baron gazed discontentedly at the throng 
of humanity, armed with round-trip tickets 
and guidebooks, that surrounded them. 

At one table a group of spectacled, lean- 
visaged students had gathered eagerly around 
a young Englishman who, with a cutty pipe 
in his mouth and his hands thrust deep into the 
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Where Snow is Sovereign 57 

particulars of an ascent of the Jungfrau from 
the Trummletenthal, finding himself well re- 
warded for the crumbs of wisdom dispensed 
in broken German by their breathless atten- 
tion. 

Near them sat a piquante brunette, an 
Italian lady, with her husband. She had 
signed herself in the visitors’ book as Socia d. 
club Alpino Italiano. But down in the 
kitchen the guides, laughing, told each other 
that the dainty lady grew giddy on the bridle- 
path above Grindelwald. 

Two Genevese sitting beside the Socia were 
paying her compliments in fluent French. 
They bestowed no special notice on the hus- 
band, a sullen-looking, brown-skinned fellow 
with intensely black, restless eyes. 

If conversation went on in whispers at this 
table, roaring and shouting came from the 
next one, whose occupants were full-bearded, 
rotund men from South Germany in Yaeger 
shirts and equipped with grass-green knap- 
sacks. Their oracle was the stout old gentle- 
man enthroned in their midst who, twenty 
years before, had once ascended the Order. 
He didn’t think much about all this fuss about 
the Bernese Alps, which every tailor’s appren- 
ice climbs nowadays, and especially — Switzer- 


58 Where Snow is Sovereign 

land — these hotels — these Englishmen — these 
prices . . . 

The thin tourist from Frankfort agreed 
with him. These dilapidated straw sheds 
which people in Switzerland called club huts! 
He should like to take these worthy men by 
the ear and send them to the Tyrol — to Payer- 
hutte — or perhaps the Knorrhaus in Bavaria. 
They would see what would make them open 
their eyes — clean beds, good food, and Pschorr 
beer from the cask . . . He broke off 
angrily, and no one understood why the lean 
tourist from Frankfort did not stay in the 
Payerhutte region or Knorrhaus, instead of 
going to Switzerland every year. 

A wag was there, too, a nimble young fel- 
low, in a white flannel suit and sky-blue belt. 
He cracked jokes about the weather, flirted 
with the waitress, and beside his chair leaned 
a long, nail-studded wooden lath which, by 
way of a jest, he used as an alpenstock. 

Several Yankee lads of twelve or fifteen 
wandering aimlessly about the room, a won- 
derfully pretty, and two hideously ugly Eng- 
lish women in green veils and waterproof 
cloaks, a German bride and groom on their 
wedding journey, who, sitting hand in hand, 
yawned in unison, a fat, primitive Swiss, 


Where Snow is Sovereign 59 

snoring and lurching to and fro like a ship 
in a storm ... the plashing of the rain 
outside, the smell of wet clothing, the odor 
of fat from the kitchen. 

“ I can’t stand it here long,” said Elizabeth, 
shutting her eyes. The buzz of conversation 
fell indistinctly on her ears. 

Good weather — good guides ” — the young 
gentleman at the window blew a ring of smoke 
from his cutty pipe — “ and the Gross Schreck- 
horn is not very difficult! ” 

“ I suppose you have been up there often? ” 
asked a student timidly. 

The direct ascent to the Gross Glockner 
notch,” — a violent dispute had arisen in the 
circle of fat men — yes, don’t you read the 
‘communications’ at all? When I tell you 
. . . Pallavicini made it . . . long be- 
fore his misfortune! ” 

^'Quelle odeur!'' sighed the fair Socia, 
waving her hand, palm downward, to scatter 
the clouds of tobacco smoke floating from the 
other tables. “ What happened to him — to 
this Pallavicini? ” The thin head teacher ad- 
justed his spectacles. 

“ He fell — from the Markgraf!” the man 
who had ascended the Ortler said gloomily, 
long time ago ” And his tone im- 


6o Where Snow is Sovereign 

plied: “ Incredible that every one should not 
know it.” 4 

The youth with the wooden lath cleared his 
throat. “ That sort of mountain scrambling 
is just a mere risking of life — it has no moral 
value at all — taverns from within, mountains 
from below, churches ” 

“ I wanted to go farther to-morrow,” said 
the pretty English girl, gazing approvingly at 
her slender, moustached guide, whom she had 
summoned from the kitchen, but the path is 
so narrow — and I have such a giddy head! ” 

The guide laughed. 

“Your head looks very well,” he said. 
They parted with a hearty shaking of hands, 
and the agreement to push on the next day to 
Strahlegg, if the weather would permit. 

Old Christen made his way into the room, 
looking for his lady, and then stood before her 
in silence. 

“ That means: shall we settle ourselves here 
or try, in spite of everything, to reach Grindel- 
wald? ” 

Elizabeth rose and took up her dripping 
hat and soaked gloves. “ It is horrible here,” 
she said resolutely. “ I will go.” 

The guide cast a doubtful glance at the 


Where Snow is Sovereign 6i 

gentleman, who rose slowly. “ You’ll be wet 
to the skin,” he said, smiling, “ you’ll look like 
a drowned cat when you reach Grindelwald, 

and will have to ” 

Elizabeth impatiently interrupted him. 
“ Are you beginning that old song too? As if 
I was made of sugar! Ridiculous! ” 

She had already grasped the handle of the 
door, and only his exclamation: “You must 
see the bill! ” induced her to wait long enough 
to have the account settled. “ There is my 
share,” she said, pressing the money into his 
hand. To her relief, he put it into his pocket 
without a word of remonstrance. The door 
closed behind the trio, separating them from 
the Philistines. 

“Thank Heaven that we are out!” cried 
Elizabeth, gazing with arms extended into the 
sweeping rain and snow that surrounded her, 
“ it is far pleasanter here! ” 

The path leading down to Grindelwald 
commenced at the chalet. Once she stood 
still, looking up with longing eyes at the misty 
world whence they came. Her eyes sparkled. 

“ The mountains certainly were not friendly 
to me,” she said gravely, “ they received me 
very inhospitably, as if I was an undesired 


62 Where Snow is Sovereign 

intruder. But that is well. The two days up 
there will always remain something apart in 
my life. I shall never forget them. And I 
will come again. I will sue for the favor of 
the mountains until they are gracious to me. 
The sun must shine again once more, even 
there.” 

The Baron looked at her with a long, 
strange gaze. And, as they silently descended 
the pebble-strewn path, the words echoed in 
his soul: “The sun must shine again once 
more — — ” 

Christen Zum Brunnen suddenly stood still 
and burst into a hearty laugh, a proceeding so 
new and surprising that the tourists turned 
toward him almost alarmed. 

The guide pointed along the way, and they 
now perceived why no one from the chalet 
had attempted to return by it. 

The pouring rain had formed streams 
which, flowing down the mountain, broke 
upon the path in dashing waterfalls, and then, 
on the other side, pushed to the valley in foam- 
ing spray. Whoever resolved to pursue the 
path was obliged to pass under the gigantic 
shower-bath. There was no other choice 
except to turn back to the chalet and be 
laughed at. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 63 

Forward! ” cried Elizabeth, eager for the 
fray. 

Her companion laughed, and the old man, 
too, chuckled merrily. 

The prospect that they would all be 
drenched to the skin evidently amused him. 
With a swift movement he dashed into the 
waterfall, turned once in it, and drew the rope 
taut. ‘‘ Hold fast to the line! ” he called to 
the lady. 

Seizing it, she shut her eyes and plunged 
forward. Brrrr! Elizabeth screamed loudly 
when, with a roar, the masses of water crashed 
upon her head, and the icy flood instantly 
poured over her whole body. 

But she was already on the other side, shak- 
ing herself. An impulse of reckless daring 
seized her. “Ju-hu-u!” she cried, putting 
her hand to her lips, and from the-misty dis- 
tance came the laughing echo. 

Some one touched her arm. Her com- 
panion stood dripping beside her. Run,” 
he shouted in her ear above the roaring of 
the fall, or you will take cold.” 

They dashed at full speed down the stony 
path. 

Strangely enough, Elizabeth felt no chill, 
and when they came to a second smaller cas- 


64 Where Snow is Sovereign 

cade, she sprang laughing, with bowed head, 
into the flood and out again beyond it, as if it 
was only a refreshing bath. The delicate 
woman, to whom standing at an open window 
in a ballroom had caused serious illness, here 
seemed steeled against all harm by excitement 
and violent exercise. 

Now at last Grindelwald’s little houses, scat- 
tered far and wide over the meadows, and the 
hotel colony grouped about the railway station 
lay before her. 

The village street, shining from the rain, 
was filled with guests, mountain guides, and 
hotel servants waiting for the returning expe- 
ditions; some misfortune might easily have 
happened to them in this bad weather among 
the mountains. 

At the entrance of the Bear, a slender 
gentleman about thirty years old, dressed 
with the most scrupulous care, was bar- 
gaining with several guides and the hotel- 
keeper. His delicately-cut, good-natured 
face wore an expression of excitement and 
anxiety. 

Of course!” said Elizabeth, stopping, a 
look of indignation flitting over her beautiful 
face — “ full of a thousand fears, just as I ex- 
pected.” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 65 

Do you know the gentleman? ” asked the 
Baron. 

She averted her eyes. It really was not 
right,” she said in a constrained tone, but at 
first it amused me so much when you instantly 
addressed me as ‘ Fraulein,’ and treated me as 
if I were a young girl. I had slipped my wed- 
ding ring into my pocket because it was in 
my way in climbing, and afterward I no longer 
found courage to confess my folly . . 
The gentleman advanced several steps. 

“ This is really too much, Elizabeth ! ” he ex- 
claimed, his voice betraying the great effort he 
was making to control himself in the stranger’s 
presence. I go to Interlaken for a day, sus- 
pecting nothing, and you take advantage of it 
to . . .” 

It is my husband,” Elizabeth murmured 
hurriedly in a low tone, without looking at 
the Baron. Then she held out her hand to 
him and old Christen. 

Thank you most cordially! I must 
hasten — we will meet this evening at 
dinner.” 

She moved swiftly away. The Baron 
gazed after her a moment, then entered the 
hotel through a side door. 

Put up provisions for three or four 


66 Where Snow is Sovereign 

days,” he said, I shall go out again in a 
few hours.” 

Zum Brunnen, who had followed, took his 
pipe out of his mouth in astonishment. 

“ Is the gentleman going out in this 
weather? ” 

Yes.” 

“ Where?” 

To the Lauteraar region, I think.” 

“ And suppose the storm keeps on? ” 

“ Then, my good Christen ” — the Baron 
patted him on the shoulder — “ it will rain in 
the valleys and snow up above on the peaks. 
And I shall sit in the club hut and whistle.” 

Old Christen hesitated. 

“ Perhaps it may clear up day after to- 
morrow,” he said thoughtfully at last. 

“ So much the better.” The Baron turned 
to the waiter. “ Be quick with the provisions 
and the bill. Meanwhile I’ll pack and 
change my clothes.” 

Are you going to leave, sir?” 

“ I think so,” he replied. “ At least I shall 
not return to Grindelwald at present.” 


CHAPTER IV 


No, what is too absurd is too absurd — such 
things must stop. . . . Here I come from 

the banker’s at Grindelwald with money in my 
pocket . . . ask: yes, deuce take it — 

where my wife is? . . . Simply gone — 

vanished — the Lord knows where. The after- 
noon passes — at nightfall I receive the mes- 
sage: Your wife is camping out somewhere in 
the glaciers, in a goat stable or some such 
place! The night passes — the next morning 
— and then at last a stranger comes down from 
the mountain and kindly delivers my wife 
over to me. No, no, my dear child — I think 
you will admit that I am a kind and consider- 
ate husband — but you must not abuse my con- 
fidence, or you will force me to draw the reins 
tighter.” 

Turning his back upon her, he gazed 
angrily through the rain-blurred panes into 
the grey afternoon. 

From the bed where she lay sipping her 
tea, Elizabeth gazed at him with a sort of 
gloomy curiosity. 

He seemed so alien to her, this elegant 

67 


68 Where Snow is Sovereign 

aristocrat who, always in a subdued voice and 
with the endeavor to say nothing actually 
wounding to her, had now scolded her for 
two hours as if she were a little child. 

Yet this man was her husband. And — 
there he was perfectly right — a kind and con- 
siderate husband, for whom many of her 
friends had envied her. They lived happily 
together, too — not exactly with consuming ten- 
derness, but like two good, light-hearted com- 
rades. Their castle in Thuringia was rarely 
without guests, a cheerful, lofty manor-house, 
around which, in winter, the report of guns 
echoed through the bare branches, and in the 
autumn the air resounded with the joyous 
barking of dogs and the snorting of horses 
waiting to hunt the hares. When they met 
amid the mirth of lawn tennis parties, or in 
the crowd at their popular balls, they nodded 
pleasantly to each other and knew that they 
were of one mind in the brilliant, gay tumult 
of their mode of life. 

For years they really had been in accord. 
If she desired to be honest, she could not help 
admitting that her husband had not changed in 
any respect since the day he sought her hand. 
He had remained the same kind-hearted, 
lively gentleman, who considered it a point 


Where Snow is Sovereign 69 

of honor to make the life of the woman who 
had entrusted herself to him as pleasant as 
possible. He was a mature man when he 
took the great step into matrimony. And 
she? She smiled sorrowfully as she thought 
of the eighteen-year-old girl of those days. 
She seemed to herself in her memory a total 
stranger. Surely she had become a different 
person. True, her cool nature and intense 
pride had kept her aloof from temptation — 
but intellectually — she had felt this with in- 
creasing terror year by year — the bond uniting 
her to her husband had loosened more and 
more. She demanded more from life; 
graver and deeper things than he could give 
her. 

She had tried several times to explain her- 
self to him. He did not understand her, and 
the effort estranged them still more. Without 
desiring to do so, she began to look down upon 
him. 

‘‘ You have not the least idea how beautiful 
it is in the mountains,” she said at last in a 
weary tone, to break the uncomfortable silence. 

He turned irritably: Beautiful? And 
suppose you had fallen down! Confound it! 
After all, I have only one wife, and our Edith 
only one mother. Of course you are not aware 


70 Where Snow is Sovereign 

how dangerous it is — every little while one of 
these climbing Jacks tumbles down heels over 
head, and that’s the end of him.” 

Elizabeth shut her eyes. A bitter, mock- 
ing smile hovered around her lips. 

After all, it is your fault,” she said. “ I 
have often begged you to go into the moun- 
tains with me — and it was only because you 
would not do it . . .” 

He had seated himself astride of a chair in 
front of her bed, and was wringing his hands 
as if to maintain his composure. “ You women 
have a talent for twisting the simplest things. 
So, because I think climbing mountains folly, 
and forbid you to do it, I am to blame for 
everything ...” 

“ Forbid me! ” Elizabeth opened her eyes 
and gazed at him again with cold surprise as, 
rising, he resumed his pacing through the 
room. 

It seemed so strange that she must obey this 
man. 

She knew that, intellectually, she was 
stronger, possessed more energy and decision, 
perhaps even more courage than he. And yet : 

He shall be thy master! ” A kind one, pos- 
sibly, but nevertheless an uncomprehending 
ruler throughout her life. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 71 

She sighed heavily. A dull, terrible dread 
of the future passed through her mind. 

He approached her again. So do be sen- 
sible, child! I will not allow you to go into 
the mountains — you can ask any one you 
choose, he will say that I am right — but other- 
wise you can have your own way, and we will 
go from here to any place you please.” 

Elizabeth started up. “ Do you want to 
leave here? ” she asked quickly. 

He cleared his throat angrily. “ You have 
made me somewhat ridiculous, ma chhe. A 
husband hunting for his wife almost with a 
lantern, and asking news of her from waiters 
and hostlers. In short, I don’t care to be re- 
ceived with significant smiles when I appear at 
the hotel table. It doesn’t suit me. We will 
dine in our rooms to-day, and start early to- 
morrow morning ...” 

Elizabeth made no answer. 

“ I have a letter from home to-day,” the 
husband went on after a pause. Edith is 
well and bright. Everything there is going 
on just as usual! ” 

She nodded silently. 

How dreary everything around her was — 
this bare hotel chamber, with its chromos — 
the clattering and tramping which the thin 


72 fP^^ere Snow is Sovereign 

wooden floors and walls carried through the 
whole house, the creaking of the patent leather 
boots, in which her husband was pacing rest- 
lessly to and fro. 

At last he stopped. Who was the other 
man with whom you came down? ” 

He introduced himself to me,” Elizabeth 
answered quietly. “ Baron von Giindlingen, 
the owner of an estate on the Main.” 

He raised his eyebrows and drew nearer. 

I thought it was a guide — at any rate, he 
looked like one.” 

She shook her head silently. 

This is charming, certainly charming — 
wandering about the glaciers with a man who 
is a total stranger to me.” 

Her features grew cold and grave. “ I am 
glad I met him,” she said slowly, without look- 
ing at her husband; “but for that, I should 
have been entirely alone and lost up there, 
and certainly would not have found my way 
down to-day. He cared for me like a strong, 
wise friend, and you would do better to call 
and thank him for it, instead of eternally be- 
moaning the dangers of the mountains.” 

He seemed irresolute. 

“ After all, there is nothing else to be done,” 
he said angrily; “ it is the only way to get out 


Where Snow is Sovereign 73 

of the affair with dignity. I’ll give the waiter 
my card, and ask if ” — he broke off abruptly, 
gazing out of the window in astonishment. 
“ Good Heavens, there is the fellow running 
off again! ” he cried joyously under his breath. 

Elizabeth followed the direction of his 
glance. Yes, she knew that broad-shouldered 
figure, moving through the rain with heavy, 
quiet steps, his ice-axe on his shoulder, farther 
and farther, until, without even one look back- 
ward, he vanished in the misty twilight which 
to-day separated the mountain world from the 
valley below. 

Deep, cheerless sorrow took possession of 
her. It seemed as if, with the solitary pedes- 
trian yonder, all the power and grandeur 
which had flashed upon her from the distance 
during the last few days, was going out of her 
life. 

The old game would begin anew, and in the 
shallow gayety of her existence perhaps it 
might soon appear incomprehensible to her- 
self that she had once longed for seriousness 
and calm reflection. 

Yet possibly it was better so! 

Better to forget a brief meeting, in which 
the blind caprice of destiny had brought two 
human beings together and separated them 


74 Where Snow is Sovereign 

again in the same moment, than to think of it, 
ponder over it — in vain. 

Her husband was studying the time-table. 

“ A train leaves at ten o’clock to-morrow 
morning,” he murmured. “ Will that suit 
you? ” 

Anything suits me,” Elizabeth answered 
wearily, turning her head aside. 


CHAPTER V 


A CLOUDLESS blue sky arched over the glacier 
valley far up among the mountains. 

Here flowed down three ice-rivers mingling 
with a surging sea of frozen waves, from 
which a mighty new glacier descended in 
winding curves, a league in length, to the val- 
leys tenanted by human beings. 

When it reached there, it had become ugly 
and dirty. Half buried by the gravel falling 
from the mountains, which it bore patiently 
on its broad back, powdered with dust from 
the valley, which rested on its ice like a layer 
of frozen mire, it rolled heavily before it an 
endless confused medley of rocks, heaping 
them along both sides of its course into re- 
pulsive piles of ruins. The tourists who ad- 
mired it below, entered its skilfully hewn ice- 
grottoes, and ascended its edge, did not 
imagine how this mighty mass looked before 
the mountains had heaped all their rubbish on 
it along the way. 

Up above, in the glacier valley, this could 
not be seen. Unsullied, one of these ice- 
streams, glittering in brilliant white, wound 

75 


76 Where Snow is Sovereign 

down through a narrow valley like a huge ser- 
pent, marked with strange reddish stripes, like 
a serpent’s body, by the stone it pulverized 
into dust. The second one produced a peace- 
ful, pleasant impression. Muffled deep in soft 
snow, it crept innocently on, and, on account 
of this very snow, was far more dangerous than 
its refractory neighbor, which plunged sud- 
denly downward in a huge precipice, amid a 
chaos of shattered masses of ice and yawn- 
ing abysses. 

Where the glaciers met, a boulder rose from 
the midst of the world of snow and glaciers 
surrounding it for a league. The sun blazed 
down upon it, as if to make the only resting- 
place in this wilderness of ice comfortable for 
the traveller. 

The lonely man who lay stretched at full 
length upon the rock, had pushed his snow 
spectacles back above the brim of his hat, and 
was gazing with unprotected eyes at the mag- 
nificence surrounding him. 

Like visions of another world, the rugged, 
spectral shapes of eternal ice towered aloft, 
glittering in the sunlight. Cliffs as smooth as 
a mirror, rising vertically, here and there 
broken and crushed into a mass of ruins re- 
sembling an ancient mountain castle with 


Where Snow is Sovereign 77 

fallen towers and crumbling walls, obelisks 
shooting into the air like needles, one still 
standing upright, another with its base already 
gnawed by the sun and inclining sharply, 
ready to fall at any moment; a lofty bluish 
triumphal arch, beneath whose dripping vault 
twenty people could have found standing 
room; a gigantic circular abyss, yawning like 
the crater of Vesuvius, high up on the edge of 
the glacier precipice, in sharp relief against 
the azure sky ; a row of slender white ice-cones, 
two or three times the height of a man, lean- 
ing sideways, backward, or bending forward 
like reckless ghosts over the chasm, into which, 
ever and anon, one of them plunged with a 
clashing sound, while between and around 
them appeared a thousand fantastic shapes, also 
the creation of the bizarre conflict between the 
sun and ice. To-day the sun was the victor, 
sufifusing with its most vivid play of color the 
High Alps bathed in its floods of light. The 
little semicircular pools in the niches of the 
walls of snow shone with a wonderful trans- 
lucent sea-green ; the glacier, dazzlingly white, 
sloped down to the huge pond which mirrored 
with redoubled depth the azure of the heavens, 
while everywhere glistened and shone in vivid 
bluish-green the crevasses of the glaciers. 


78 Where Snow is Sovereign 

Close to the edge their hue merged into an 
almost transparent violet, but their depths 
shimmered with a mysterious moonlight radi- 
ance like the reflection of some hidden world 
of marvels awaiting the wanderer below. 

A strange rushing and roaring noise rose 
from these chasms, the flowing of subterranean 
streams which no human eye ever beheld. 
Everywhere murmured and gurgled the only 
living thing in this wilderness, the turbid 
water. It ran in swift rivulets through nar- 
row ice-channels across the glacier; it dripped 
and trickled wherever the eye turned; it shot 
in jets the thickness of a man’s body from dark 
ice gateways into the open air, and plunged 
down the cliffs in cascades of spray, on which 
the sunlight danced in all the hues of the rain- 
bow. 

No other sound was heard. Nothing save 
this endless, monotonous bubbling, this subter- 
ranean roaring, this rippling of the ever- 
gliding water, penetrated the solemn stillness 
of the realm of eternal ice. 

Hundreds of times already had Baron von 
Giindlingen gazed at this scene, and it always 
took possession of him with fresh power. 

And to-day the impression was different. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 79 

Once only, when two evenings before he 
saw the village behind him vanish in a whirl 
of driving rain, he had paused a moment. 
Just at the spot where the path began to as- 
cend into the High Alps, through the mist 
gleamed indistinctly a monument erected to 
the memory of Dr. Haller, who, with two 
guides, had disappeared years before in the 
Lauteraar district. “ Quern vatem fecit na- 
tura, templo recepit! ” ran the inscription, 
and his lips involuntarily formed the trans- 
lation. 

“ He whom Nature created for her priest, 
she received into her temple!” — dead like 
yonder man, or living like himself. Nature 
offered him consolation. She gave him the 
rest and peace of solitude. 

Yet to-day a thought, which hitherto had 
never disturbed him, constantly arose in his 
soul. What a pity that you should enjoy all 
this splendor alone,” passed through his mind. 
“ How many there are who, like you, would 
bow in reverence before this miracle.” 

Perhaps this sublime revelation of nature 
would be doubly elevating and powerful if 
two persons were absorbed in it together, if 
one uttered what was passing indistinctly 
through the other’s mind, and a mute glance 


8o Where Snow is Sovereign 

completed what, nevertheless, could not be 
fully expressed. It really was a pity that 
she had seen the mountains only in the mist 
and rain. He fancied that he saw her now 
beside him, gazing with dilated, sparkling 
blue eyes at the magnificence of the glaciers, 
her lips half parted, her hands clasped, while 
in his ear rang her clear, sweet voice. 

Laughing angrily, he shut his lids in order 
not to be dazzled by the glitter. 

Human beings! Human beings here in this 
mountain solitude. He could have them in 
crowds down in the valley, if he desired. 

But he did not desire it! He was separated 
from them since that day, now five years ago, 
which at one blow had robbed him of all that 
he held most dear on earth, his wife and the 
friend of his youth. 

Even now, when he thought of it, he felt a 
dull surprise. He could not understand how 
such treachery was possible. And yet — no one 
knew it better than he — it was true. 

He had let her go. It seemed ridiculous to 
kill where all in one’s own heart is already 
frozen to death. And frozen it must remain — 
now and forever — against all human beings, 
and wake to life only when Nature spoke 
calmly and kindly to him. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 8i 

A violent prickling sensation, as though he 
had sand in his eyes, roused him from his 
reverie. He knew what that meant. They 
had been gazing too long unprotected at 
the dazzling sparkle of the glacier. A 
slight attack of snow blindness was threat- 
ening. 

Then a feeling which had already assailed 
him several times, bringing a vague doubt, 
seized him. Was Nature really so kind to him 
and his fidelity? Did she reward him for his 
hostility to mankind with the best that she 
could bestow? Was she worthy that he should 
serve her unto death? 

Often a secret voice within had whispered: 
“You will receive nothing from Nature ex- 
cept what you gave to her. All the unappre- 
ciated fidelity, the reserved, enduring love 
which you withheld from human beings, you 
lavished on this lifeless world and receive 
back again from it. Nature has no share in 
it. She is more cruel, more inexorable and 
indifferent to your weal and woe than all 
mankind.” 

He reflected. Yes, this Nature was cruel. 
Looking closely into it, there was a dia- 
bolical malignity in her treatment of human 
beings. 


82 Where Snow is Sovereign 

She strikes with blindness the man who 
unsuspectingly feasts his eyes upon her mag- 
nificent colors ; she gives the thirsty the poison- 
ous milk of the thawing glacier; she draws 
away the overhanging crust of snow from 
beneath the feet of the happy youth who is 
shouting gleefully from the brow of the moun- 
tain to the green valley below, and lets him 
be crushed to death on the rocks beneath ; she 
coats the crevasses with treacherous snow, 
through which the incautious cragsman breaks 
to perish below in an icy prison, a narrow 
strip of blue sky far above his head. She 
hurls stones from the peaks upon the man who 
seeks to scale them and, if he escapes these, she 
numbs his body by a squall of snow till his 
fingers can no longer hold firmly and the tem- 
pest seizes the helpless form and flings it 
shrieking over the cliffs ; she sends down upon 
the exhausted human beings tramping over the 
endless glacier a shower of whirling flakes till 
they sink deeper and deeper in the soft snow, 
and the white covering closes over them as the 
death rattle sounds in their throats. 

No, this was a grim, terrible foe, whom it 
was a delight to oppose, to conquer, whose 
wrath it was a pleasure to defy in a continu- 
ally renewed conflict. Her grandeur might 


Where Snow is Sovereign 83 

be admired, but it was impossible to love 
her. 

Starting up, he collected his luggage and 
pushed the snow spectacles down over his eyes. 
Twilight was gathering around him. Under 
the smoky glass and the wire network on the 
sides, the radiant play of white, blue, and 
green hues had changed to a gloomy grey, as 
though the sun had suddenly vanished from 
the sky. The whole landscape assumed a 
sinister, menacing expression. 

The Baron gazed around him. For the first 
time in years he felt alien in this pallid, spec- 
tral-hued world, lonely in the solitude. For 
the first time he experienced a desire to have 
some human being by his side, to hear a human 
voice, and to know that there was some living 
creature besides himself in this icy desert. 

Slowly . . . cautiously, he began the walk 
through the world of dangers which threaten 
the solitary mountaineer on the glaciers. 

He was well trained. His eye detected at a 
long distance the places where the High Alps 
had set their traps for human beings, the snow- 
cloaked glacier crevasses. Almost impercep- 
tible winding lines, on which the snow glim- 
mered with an especially innocent whiteness. 


84 Where Snow is Sovereign 

marked the perilous spots. If, pausing pru- 
dently on the edge, one thrust the ice-axe 
several times into the surface, it suddenly 
caved, the fragments of snow rattled into the 
depths, and a hideous, fathomless chasm 
yawned to the light of day. 

In cutting steps, too, he was obliged to con- 
trol any tremor of the body. Here, also, close 
beside the ice-slopes where he was making a 
path for his feet, gaped clefts and ice-holes 
filled with water. Woe betide him if he 
slipped! 

From those green-glittering basins, with 
their smooth, high walls, no escape was pos- 
sible. Benumbed at once in the icy water, one 
would sink lower and lower, deeper and 
deeper, without reaching, even when a corpse, 
the bottom of the gulf. Prudence was needed, 
too, in climbing along the glacier slopes, be- 
neath towering ice-cliffs and ponderous walls 
of snow. The shock of the nail-shod shoes 
was enough to shake the colossus. A crash 
and clatter of falling masses, and the feeble 
human body disappears forever under the 
ruins, which, during the next night, freeze into 
strange, new forms. 

Even among the stones of the moraine, de- 
struction still lurks. In walking carelessly 


Where Snow is Sovereign 85 

the foot slips, a bone breaks, and an accident 
which usually merely means confinement to 
the couch without peril, here, in the loneliest 
parts of the mountains, may bring the helpless 
man, dragging himself with difficulty a few 
hundred paces, death by starvation. 

Caution! Caution! It had become second 
nature to Baron von Gundlingen, as well as to 
every other experienced mountaineer. Slowly 
and steadily he wound his way through the 
wilderness, here vanishing a short time in a 
serac, an ice-chasm, there walking along the 
narrow edge of a snow-wall, climbing up and 
down steps, sliding over smooth surfaces and 
swiftly, after careful examination, leaping 
across clefts, until at last he again stood on 
the solid rock and thrust his spectacles into 
his pocket. 

Then, after a glance at the chart, he moved 
steadily forward. He still had a long walk 
before him, both that day and the following 
one, over the wild solitary route leading across 
glacier-filled passes — a genuine “ high level 
road,” in the jargon of the Alpine Club, which 
would take him from the Bernese Oberland 
into Wallis, to the giants of southern Switzer- 
land. 


CHAPTER VI 


There one can imagine how it looked in 
the days of mail-coaches, when people were on 
the road a week between Berlin and Dantzig — 
just glance down, Elizabeth, it really is very 
pretty.” 

Elizabeth slowly raised her eyes, while her 
husband’s words fell only half understood 
upon her ears. The jolting for hours in the 
hired carriage, the scorching sun, and the 
clouds of dust, which had veiled the view on 
both sides of the highroad, had combined to 
throw her into a semi-doze, a weary dulness, 
from which she now roused for the first time. 

Her face brightened. This was really an 
interesting scene. These enormous stone 
basins, closed in the background by the daz- 
zling steeply descending mass of the Rhone 
Glacier, and intersected by numerous streams 
branching in every direction, the surrounding 
heights, bare of bush or tree, from which the 
three military roads descended in endless 
windings to the glacier, the gay stir of busy 
life along these highways passing the bound- 
aries of the eternal snows, the long trains of 
86 


Where Snow is Sovereign 87 

post-chaises drawn by four and five horses, 
which, amid the cracking of whips, passed at a 
slow trot the most dangerous curves, leaving 
a long trail of dust behind them. And below 
in the valley, a strange contrast to the desolate 
mountain world, the great modern hotel with 
the endless stables, the tangle of vehicles 
driven up before it, and the throng of grooms 
with their horses, amid poles and wheels, and 
passengers hurrying through them . . . 

The coachman whipped up his horses. 
They stopped in front of the hotel and after a 
brief parley, to which the representatives of 
all nations idling around the entrance listened 
with yawning interest, were assigned to the 
room for which they had telegraphed. 

It was on the ground floor, and while Eliza- 
beth was mechanically finishing her evening 
toilette for the hotel dinner, she heard, di- 
rectly under the windows, her husband’s voice, 
as he paced up and down outside, smoking his 
cigarette. 

He must have met acquaintances. Several 
voices sounded together excitedly: the clear 
ripple of girlish laughter, the lisping tones of 
an older woman, and the deep bass of a man. 

Surely she must know that oily voice. A 


88 Where Snow is Sovereign 

cautious side-glance through the panes. Yes, 
there stood her relative and neighbor, Herr 
von Endemer, with his delicate, girlishly slen- 
der wife, and two half-grown daughters. A 
tall, corpulent, grey-haired man, with a smil- 
ing face, merry, twinkling blue eyes, and a 
scanty moustache, whose hairs stood out from 
his lips like a cat’s, was answering with noisy 
jollity her husband’s questions. 

Where were the Endemers from? “ From 
Zermatt! Really splendid neighborhood, 
rather overcrowded, it was true, but interest- 
ing people — higher classes — ^mountain climb- 
ers from all quarters of the globe — a great 
many English aristocrats — very unlike the 
Cook tourists down in the region of the Swiss 
lakes, magnificent place too — fine air — excel- 
lent hotels — I can only advise you,” Herr von 
Endemer closed his report, “ to go there too — 
you won’t regret it! ” 

Elizabeth saw how her husband shrugged 
his shoulders. “ I don’t know exactly where I 
shall take my wife,” he said, drawing the lo- 
quacious uncle a little aside, “ this trip doesn’t 
seem to agree with her. It may be because 
Edith isn’t with us, but how can we drag the 
child about, and she is in excellent care. But, 
^t any rate, Elizabeth has been melancholy 


Where Snow is Sovereign 89 

and silent — you know, the mood in which 
women gaze at us all day long with the ex- 
pression of martyrs, we have no idea why, 
until at last we seem utterly stupid to our- 
selves. Besides, she has very extrordinary 
ideas — is continually wanting to go back into 
the High Alps, since lately, wholly against my 
will ...” 

But that will be the very thing!” cried 
the jovial old gentleman. “In Zermatt she can 
have her choice — there one mountain overtops 
another.” 

“You did not let me finish!” His tone 
sounded somewhat irritated. “ I said — against 
my will. I have positively forbidden it, and 
she cannot make her mind easy.”. 

Herr von Endemer shook his grey head 
with a mournful smile. 

“ Don’t you know women yet? ” he said 
sorrowfully. “You must never forbid them 
anything. Then they say to themselves : 

‘ Now I certainly will,’ exactly like little chil- 
dren. No, my boy, we must always act as if we 
entered into all their notions — pretend — you 
understand. As soon as they believe they have 
had their own way, they settle down and are 
easily taken in. Go quietly to Zermatt with 
your wife, and ascend every day the Mettel- 


90 


Where Snow is Sovereign 

horn, or some other safe, not wholly full- 
grown mountain, — but always choose a steep 
one, with plenty of stony places, then you’ll 
see. In three days’ time she’ll get enough of 
it, and beg you to let her stay at home.” 

“ But it is dangerous! ” 

“ Just look at my two girls.” He glanced at 
his two daughters, who, biting their lips to 
keep from laughing, were watching with deep 
interest the process of getting a shapelessly fat 
Frenchwoman to the banquette of a mail- 
coach by the aid of a ladder and two strong 
men ; “ they both climbed about the mountains 
like weasels, of course with a good guide, and 
Cousin Edmund was there too — tramped 
through the snow, gathered edelweiss — big 
bunches of it — and nothing happened to them. 
Of course they were not allowed to go where 
there was any real danger! ” 

Elizabeth moved hurriedly away from the 
window. A cloud of anger darkened her 
beautiful features. It vexed her that she had 
been obliged to listen to this babble, and she 
hastened her dressing, but while moving about 
the room, she again heard her husband’s 
voice. 

“ You are right,” he said in a laughing tone, 
that’s worth considering.” 



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Where Snow is Sovereign 91 

Just try it,” replied the oily bass. 

“I will! And if Zermatt is really so 
pretty ...” 

She left the room and went down to greet 
her friends. 

Before the dinner hour people strolled to the 
Rhone Glacier, which, like a giant astray, 
glimmered alone in the rocky valley, other- 
wise free from snow and ice. 

These piled-up masses of ice, shut in by bare 
walls of rock, seemed to Elizabeth like a caged 
lion. In front the idle loungers, turning the 
pages of Baedeker, screaming children, pho- 
tographers’ studios, a small hotel, within a 
stone’s throw of the glacier, old ladies with 
opera glasses, dirty boys selling mountain crys- 
tals, grazing cows, shouts, and the cracking 
of whips from the highway. She turned away, 
feeling a sense of loathing at this profanation 
of the marvels of the upper world. 

But she would see this miracle again! She 
could now be reasonably sure that her husband 
would propose driving along the valley of the 
Rhone, which here sprang forth as a turbid 
glacier stream, to Zermatt, and her heart beat 
faster at the thought. An ardent, anxious 
longing, never before experienced in her 


92 Where Snow is Sovereign 

whole life, urged her to the gates of the Al- 
pine world, and the memory of the two days 
she had spent there was enough to produce 
an incomprehensible mood of sorrowful long- 
ing. . . . 

The sun was setting. A cool breeze swept 
down from the upper passes and the glacier. 
They turned to go. From every direction 
black spots were descending the rubble-strewn 
slopes to the lofty hotel, where the dinner- 
hour was approaching. 

At last the meal was over. The bare, dimly- 
lighted corridor filled with guests, who, 
pacing slowly to and fro, were trying to kill 
the long autumn evening. Outside the cold 
made itself felt. Only a few, buttoning their 
wraps closely, ventured into the keen night 
air. Others sought the tap-rooms, where 
Munich beer flowed from the casks, and the 
clicking of billiard balls echoed through 
clouds of tobacco smoke. 

But most of the company gathered in the 
vestibule. Here an open fire blazed cheerily 
through the dusk, and around its flickering 
light, which pleased the eye more than it dif- 
fused warmth. Old England lounged in chairs 
drawn up in a semicircle. The whole space 
was thronged with people. In the wavering 


Where Snow is Sovereign 93 

firelight the heads and figures of the British 
appeared from the gloom and vanished again. 

A group of Catholic priests moved to and 
fro beyond them. One heard the soft, con- 
tinual swishing of their robes, mingled with 
the clanking of the sabre of a Swiss military 
officer from Andermatt who, while waiting 
for his carriage, was wandering aimlessly 
among the piles of trunks heaped in the hall. 

Elizabeth wearily put down the newspaper 
she held, and took up another. It was not 
for the pleasure of reading, but to avoid shar- 
ing in her husband’s conversation with old 
Herr von Endemer, whose family had already 
retired. 

Kanitz proposal — bimetallism — she could 
not understand how, in this great unknown 
world, people could discuss all these subjects 
which, at home, during the long winter in 
Thuringia, had become an abomination to 
her. And yet the two men had already 
spent an hour in discussing the defective 
measures of the imperial government, and 
constantly growing more heated over the 
argument. 

Yet were the other people about her doing 
any better? The English gathered around 
the fireplace were flirting, which consisted in 


94 Where Snow is Sovereign 

the young ladies throwing back their heads, 
laughing, and showing their faultless teeth to 
the admirers leaning over their chairs; two 
elderly Americans, with smooth-shaven upper 
lips and fan-shaped full beards, were making 
calculations in their note-books ; a stout gentle- 
man, with a strong Low German accent, was 
expatiating in detail upon the rules governing 
the management of the hotel ; a Frenchwoman, 
visibly rouged, was casting sparkling glances 
at every single man who passed ; an old Rus- 
sian aristocrat, surrounded by a group of 
waiters and hotel officials, was inquiring for 
the twentieth time why his trunks had not 
arrived. She seemed to herself so alien, so 
alone amid this swarm of tourists, who were 
here in obedience to the dictates of fashion, 
not their own desires. 

Among the numerous lists of visitors at 
watering-places, and records of arrivals lying 
before her, she had half instinctively taken up 
the Zermatt Advertiser and was glancing list- 
lessly down its columns. 

Her eyes rested on one name, and her heart 
suddenly gave a quick throb and began to beat 
violently. 

The paper trembled in her hand. For the 
third time, mentally spelling each syllable, 


Where Snow is Sovereign 95 

she read the fact that, among many other 
guests, Baron von Giindlingen and valet were 
registered at the Hotel Mont-Cervin in Zer- 
matt. 

Elizabeth gazed into vacancy, a slow sense 
of fear stole over her with paralyzing power 
— a benumbing dread of herself! At that 
moment, by the effect produced by those few 
words in the list of visitors, she perceived the 
true state of her feelings, and what her hus- 
band really was to her — ^which she had been 
trying with all her strength to forget. 

And what was the meaning, in the inmost 
depths of her heart, of this dreamy yearning 
for the mountains . . . ? 

Elizabeth’s breath came heavily. Here was 
the temptation which more than one friend 
had confessed with tears in some twilight 
hour, but which she herself had never yet felt. 
Now the peril suddenly threatened her, rob- 
bing her of calmness and the power of reflec- 
tion. 

To avoid the lure! Of course — that was the 
best way. 

She would beg her husband to take her to 
the Swiss lakes or the Engadine. 

He would do so without suspecting the 
reason for her entreaty. 


96 Where Snow is Sovereign 

But something within her soul rebelled, 
something akin to a feeling of proud de- 
fiance. Was it not cowardly, humiliating to 
her self-respect, to fly from danger, instead of 
confronting and conquering it? Besides, from 
many things which she had seen and experi- 
enced, she knew that absence does not always 
kill love, as the old proverb says. Often it 
merely fans it to a brighter flame. In dreamy 
reveries it creates an ideal image of the be- 
loved one, busily pictures fresh traits of beauty 
and nobility, and what she had once witnessed 
in the case of two relatives might often 
happen: that two people who had gone 
through fire and water to reach each other, 
in a short time grew disenchanted and 
estranged, and finally parted again. 

Was it not better to see close at hand, and 
have an opportunity to examine all the faults 
and weaknesses of a human being who, in one 
brief meeting, had produced so deep an im- 
pression? 

Perhaps it would require only a few days 
to bring the disenchantment! And with it 
peace and victory. Then she herself could 
smile at the paling vision of a marvellous be- 
ing, which her excited, quivering nerves had 
created amid the terrors of the Higher Alps, 


Where Snow is Sovereign 97 

unwonted privations and exertions, and mortal 
peril. 

Her husband touched her arm. 

Listen, Elizabeth! ” he said. “ Endemer 
has just been telling me wonderful tales about 
Zermatt and its mountains 1 To show you that 
I am no inhuman monster I’ll take you there 
tomorrow, if you like! And, for aught I 
care, we can scramble about a little.” 

He clasped her hand with a pleased laugh. 
A slight shiver ran through Elizabeth’s limbs. 
She felt as if she had already betrayed him. 
“I thank you,” she said softly, her eyes spark- 
ling with a cold light, while a stern, defiant 
expression hovered around her lips. 


CHAPTER VII 


Zermatt has a king. Throned far above is 
a ruler, around which everything in this 
narrow mountain valley revolves, to which 
strangers gaze upward with astonishment and 
awe, natives with gratitude. For to it they are 
principally indebted for the transformation of 
the secluded mountain valley into the crowded 
tourist resort, with its four-story hotels and 
rack and pinion road, the Promised Land of 
the Alpinist. 

The king is the Matterhorn. 

As the immense rocky peak towers 14,000 
metres aloft into the air, as though trying to 
pierce with its needle-like top the very vault 
of heaven, it presents an image of terrible sav- 
ageness and grandeur which no one dwelling 
in the valley beneath its shadow can escape. 

The Matterhorn occupies the attention of 
every one below. 

So long as the tide of tourists ebbs and 
flows during the summer, everybody talks 
about it day after day. People who never 
climbed a mountain summit are thoroughly 
familiar with every detail connected with the 
98 


Where Snow is Sovereign 99 

giant. Each hour all the particulars of the 
first ascent in July, 1865, were related as if the 
event had happened only the day before. It 
is still known that on the return, twenty feet 
below the summit, young Hadow slipped 
first, the Reverend Mr. Hudson and Lord 
Francis Douglas followed, and even Michel 
Croz, the peerless mountain guide, could not 
prevent their fall of seven thousand feet to 
the glacier below. Yet the angry Colossus 
had not succeeded in shaking off all his sub- 
duers. Whymper and the two guides still 
stood above by the broken rope, and though 
pale and shaken, descended to the valley. A 
few days after, a band of daring guides scaled 
the peak, and when they returned in safety 
to their native meadows, the spell was broken, 
and, since that time, year after year, the 
mountain previously believed unconquer- 
able was forced to feel man’s foot upon its 
neck. 

But the ascent of the Matterhorn is always 
an event in Zermatt, though in favorable sum- 
mers it takes place fifty times and oftener. 
Elizabeth perceived this when she went out 
with her husband on the veranda of the Hotel 
Mont-Cervin. 

Groups were standing in the streets, tour- 


loo Where Snow is Sovereign 

ists of all nations, pretty English girls with 
parted lips, glacier climbers burnt as red as 
crabs, donkey drivers, a queer crowd of fat 
old women who, since the opening of the in- 
evitable rack and pinion road, had found their 
way here and, somewhat apart from the others, 
whole bands of the plainly dressed, weather- 
beaten mountain guides of Zermatt, who are 
among the best of their guild. 

All were gazing up at the giant, shining 
above them in the sunset light. 

A warm, ruddy tone transfigured the rugged 
cliffs, the narrow snow channels in the fur- 
rows of the steep, precipitous rocks glittered 
like silver, and a steep, white glacier near the 
summit sparkled brilliantly. The peak itself 
was still flaming in molten gold, while below 
darkness was already gathering around the 
foot of the mountain. Fleecy white clouds, 
shimmering transparently in the rays of the 
westering sun, clung here and there to jutting 
crags and, midway up the height, formed a 
light veil concealing the ridge. 

“That’s the trouble!’^ said an old French- 
man beside Elizabeth, who had courteously 
offered her his opera glass; “as far as the 
cloud-belt we saw the descent distinctly — but 
they did not appear beyond. At least no one 


Where Snow is Sovereign loi 

discovered them. You can imagine the 
anxiety.” 

Twisting the glass nervously, Elizabeth 
summoned her best French and asked the 
gallant old gentleman for a farther explana- 
tion. 

“With pleasure! For the first time this 
season a lady, an Austrian noblewoman, has 
ventured up the Matterhorn — you see the 
way, Madame: the horribly steep ridge up 
to the shelf of rock they call the ‘ shoulder.’ 
Then, farther up, by ropes and pegs to the 
^ nose ’ and across the snow for the last climb 
to the summit.” 

There, punctually at noon, the three — the 
lady and the two guides — were seen by the 
spyglass, tiny black figures, bending far 
forward to brace themselves against the gusts 
of wind, standing on the giddy height. Very 
soon after they set out on their return, and 
now . . . 

A fashionably dressed young man came run- 
ning up the street. 

“She is back again!” he shouted from a 
distance to two glacier-burnt figures, friends; 
“ they have just telephoned from Schwarz- 
see!” 

And that had not been seen! There was 


102 Where Snow is Sovereign 

great excitement. It must have been on ac- 
count of the evening mist upon the moun- 
tains, the groups of guides decided in their 
almost incomprehensible patois, a singular 
dialect of German mingled with fragments 
of Celtic and Italian. 

“ She came straight on from the 
Schwarzsee hotel,” the dandy continued; 

she’ll be here in an hour.” 

So the people strolled through the village 
to take their posts at the other end or else- 
where, and wait for the great event, while 
most of the fat old ladies went back to their 
rooms. 

This was fortunate. They would have de- 
stroyed the effect of this characteristic bustle 
in the lofty mountain station, which now, as 
night approached, filled the streets and held 
all Elizabeth’s senses captive. 

From every direction, the moraine of the 
Corner glacier, the Findelnthal, and the 
spray-drenched ravine of the Triftbach, but 
especially from the Riffelhaus, the mountain- 
eers were returning with swift, firm steps, ac- 
companied by one or two guides, ice picks in 
their hands, and snow spectacles on their hats 
adorned with bunches of edelweiss. Among 
the pedestrians who had sought recreation in 


Where Snow is Sovereign 103 

the valleys and on the surrounding hills, lean- 
ing on alpenstocks and the useless little 
chamois horns, were whole trains of mules, in 
whose saddles swayed women, sometimes even 
strong men, followed by their drivers; then 
more mules laden with trunks and boxes for 
the Riffel Hotel far above Zermatt, the tink- 
ling of the bells of the cows and goats trotting 
from the pasture, the cries of the crippled 
beggars by the wayside, the harsh tones of the 
lounging guides, the shrill ringing of the 
hotel bells — all blended in a confused medley 
in the narrow, dirty village street, framed 
on both sides by gay open shops. 

Then the scaler of the Matterhorn at last 
appeared. She was not a beautiful woman. 
Slenderly built, with close-cropped hair, and 
bold, rather coarse features, she looked like 
a boy as she walked with long strides between 
her guides and, though visibly exhausted, 
planted her feet in the shapeless mountain 
shoes so heavily that the little iron chains on 
the snow-leggings clanked lightly. 

She received greetings on all sides. Before 
the Hotel Monte Rosa the aristocratic mem- 
bers of the London Alpine Club, who sat 
yawning as they waited for their dinner, rose, 
and the young dandy who had brought 


104 Where Snow is Sovereign 

news of her coming formally presented a 
bouquet. 

She received it with a nod. “ That was a 
climb,” she called, laughing, to a broad- 
shouldered man as she passed on, but you 
were right! The snow is very bad up there 
to-day.” 

The gentleman had answered by a silent 
bow. Now, turning, he looked Elizabeth 
straight in the face — at first carelessly, then 
with a puzzled, incredulous expression, as if 
he would not believe his senses. 

She wondered that she herself remained 
perfectly unmoved. But, in the course of the 
last few days she had so often imagined the 
meeting, considered what she would do and 
say, that neither words nor manner failed 
her. 

So it is really you!” She moved for- 
ward quickly, holding out her hand cor- 
dially; “you are here. Of course we read 
your name in the list of visitors, but did 
not know whether we should still find you.” 

The Baron held her hand firmly, gazing 
keenly into her face. “ Yes — and how do you 
happen to be here? ” he asked curtly. 

Elizabeth laughed. “ I, with my husband, 
of course — but let me make you acquainted. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 105 

My husband, Baron von Giindlingen, the pre- 
server of my life, if I may say so . . 

I am uncommonly glad ” — her husband 
was courteous as usual — ‘‘ to my great regret 
you left Grindelwald so soon that I was un- 
able to express my thanks.” 

The other protested. “ There is no occa- 
sion. I happened to be there, or old Christen 
would have accomplished it alone. He has 
never let any one fall.” 

A pause followed. They were walking 
slowly back through the village street. 

Do you know we are going to make trips 
here, too?” Elizabeth asked. My husband 
has at last acquired a taste for them. We shall 
begin to-morrow.” 

The Baron nodded, glancing skyward. If 
the fair weather lasts,” he said. ‘‘Here below 
the wind is blowing up from the Sankt Niklas 
valley, but overhead the clouds are still mov- 
ing from the south.” 

“ And is that a bad sign? ” asked Herr von 
Randa. 

“ It will bring rain. But perhaps it will 
improve. There is no change in the barometer 
yet.” 

Elizabeth stopped and gazed longingly at 
the Matterhorn, 


io6 Where Snow is Sovereign 

I should like to go up there,” she said, 
pointing to the giant, whose brilliant hues 
were paling in the twilight. “ Heaven knows 
I envy the lady who went to-day.” 

“ You cannot go on the Matterhorn.” Her 
companion really addressed himself more to 
her husband than to her. It is too difficult 
for you.” 

Indeed? ” Her tone was somewhat 
piqued. “ I think I have sufficient courage.” 

Courage is not the only requisite. Training 
is needed, too, and that cannot be gained in a 
day.” 

“ Well — where shall we go then? ” 

He shrugged his shoulders. There are 
easy mountains. The Cima di Jazzi, or the 
Breithorn. Everybody climbs that. Or even 
the Untergabelhorn.” 

He spoke as indifferently as a guide with 
whom one is discussing a tour. Her indigna- 
tion rose. She saw that he would not volun- 
tarily renew the dangerous comradeship of a 
few days ago. 

I hope the cold bath did not injure you? ” 
he asked courteously. 

“ No, thank you. Not in the least.” 

Not even a cold? ” 

“No. Not at all.” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 107 

“ A proof of your fine constitution. Then 
you had at least one advantage from your ex- 
cursion in the rain.” 

The excursion in the rain. There was some- 
thing in the expression which did not suit her 
present mood. 

Yet was he not right to shun this mood and, 
in place of the familiar tone of intercourse in 
the club hut, to substitute the formality of 
good society? He could do nothing else. It 
was his duty. And she herself must follow 
his example, must try to erect these barriers 
between herself and him. 

Yet she felt disappointed, almost humil- 
iated, when they all three sat down together at 
the long dinner table in the hotel. 

His outer man seemed changed. He wore a 
plain, correctly-made suit. But the satin neck- 
tie, full trousers, and fashionable Tuxedo did 
not, in her opinion, harmonize with the large, 
noble lines of his figure. The mountaineer of 
the heights, in his weather-beaten woollen 
jacket, his nail-shod shoes, the ice-pick in his 
strong hand, appeared like a totally different 
person from the taciturn landed proprietor, 
talking with the head waiter about a bottle of 
Beaujolais. 

Perhaps his thoughts were the same. Per- 


io8 Where Snow is Sovereign 

haps he did not recognize in the slender, 
formal society woman, sitting opposite to him 
by her husband’s side, the bold comrade of a 
few days ago, the dreamer who had beheld 
with him the marvels of the mountain world. 

At any rate he was sufficiently stiff and re- 
served. In spite of the courtesy with which 
he carried on the conversation, he seemed to 
be longing for the end of the meal. 

Elizabeth grew more and more silent, and 
the Baron’s words also came less fluently. 

At last they ceased entirely. It is absurd to 
talk when one has nothing to say. 

But their eyes sometimes met. And then 
it seemed as though the same thought darted 
like lightning through their minds: How 
long do we mean to keep on playing this 
farce? ” 

This lasted only a moment. Then they 
felt that they had gone astray. And it was 
fortunate that they no longer understood each 
other. Yet a mood of sorrowful indignation 
took possession of them. They had imagined 
a different waking from the dream. 

The talking and laughing, the rattling of 
plates, the eating and drinking, the sound of 
the bell, giving the signal to serve another 
course, the rapid steps of the maids and wait- 


Where Snow is Sovereign 109 

ers — all seemed so disagreeable to Elizabeth 
to-day. She glanced down the table; every- 
where self-satisfied, ordinary faces — chat- 
tering, chewing humanity, rarely an unusual 
countenance, an interesting person. 

These guests could almost be counted. 
There were two old men, an American and a 
Briton, who during the entire meal intently 
read the Times and the New York Herald, 
After the roast they sat silent, exchanged their 
newspapers across the table, and vanished 
again behind the huge sheets. 

This seemed to displease a gentleman near 
by, who looked like a peevish nut-cracker. 
He drummed nervously on his plate, pulled 
his dark beard, and stared as if hypnotized at 
the two men opposite. 

There at last was a beautiful face: a young 
French girl, whose dark, mournful eyes gazed 
longingly down the table to the window panes, 
beyond which the blue outlines of the moun- 
tains rose in the twilight. Beside the window 
stood the waiter with the pudding-dish, and 
the farther he advanced, serving the hungry 
guests, the more its contents lessened, and the 
larger grew the soulful eyes of the hungry 
girl. 

Elizabeth again gazed into vacancy. She 


no Where Snow is Sovereign 

did not understand herself why she felt so 
irritated and miserable. Was it merely 
wounded self-esteem, because he had roused 
her from the dream she had desired to shake 
off by her own strength? 

Or was it longing for the dream itself, 
which was dissolving before her like a bright- 
hued soap-bubble, leaving her to empty, deso- 
late reality? 

The two men beside her were engaged in 
eager conversation. They had found a sub- 
ject of interest in their experience as the own- 
ers of large landed estates, and were exchang- 
ing their views concerning the Central Saxon 
and the Frank methods of agriculture. They 
talked mainly of cattle raising, the Simmen- 
thal breed — of grazing and co-operative farm- 
ing. From the words which fell half heard 
upon her ears, Elizabeth could gather that 
her husband intended to make a bargain with 
his neighbor about a herd of choice cows kept 
for breeding. 

The Baron, interrupting this conversation, 
had repeatedly turned to her with a few 
courteous words. She answered briefly and 
coldly, then, taking advantage of a favorable 
opportunity, turned to the lady on her right, 
a pleasant English matron who, sitting beside 


Ill 


Where Snow is Sovereign 

her stiff, silent husband, was glad to exchange 
with her beautiful neighbor, who spoke Eng- 
lish passably well, her views of Zermatt, 
Switzerland in general, and the hotel prices 
in particular. 

“Elizabeth ...” She felt her husband 
touch her arm and saw that Baron von Giind- 
lingen had risen, without waiting for dessert 
to be served. 

Returning his bow with a smile, she im- 
patiently pushed back her own chair as he 
walked heavily down the hall. “ We will go, 
too,” she said, pressing her husband’s hand 
lightly under the table ; “ it is horrible here.” 

They took a short evening walk through 
the village, which now presented a very 
strange appearance. The ancient, weather- 
blackened wooden huts were flooded by the 
bluish glare of electric lights; the bright rays 
of candles and the sound of dance music 
streamed through the windows of the lofty 
hotel, where the dark crowd of guides and 
persons standing in the street saw the guests 
whirling around in the hastily-cleared dining- 
room. High above, glittering in the star- 
light, glimmered the fields of eternal ice, and 
somewhat farther down vaporous smoke 
marked the location of the lofty Rififel hotel. 


1 12 Where Snow is Sovereign 

The Matterhorn pierced the star-strewn 
night-heavens like a white, serrated vision of 
preternatural size floating in the gloom, from 
the railway station came the whistle of the 
locomotive, the cracking of whips, and the 
rumbling of the hotel stages which, laden with 
guests gazing curiously about them, drove at 
a walk through the brilliantly-lighted booths 
lining both sides of the streets. 

Herr von Randa stopped in front of the 
hotel and scanned the glass corridor at the 
side, from which echoed voices and music. I 
should like another glass of beer,” he said 
rather hesitatingly, for he could hardly ex- 
pect his wife to accompany him into the 
clouds of tobacco smoke and decidedly mixed 
company. 

But she was glad to have an hour alone, and 
held out her hand to him, saying: “ Then go 
in; I will write a few letters upstairs in the 
room. Au revoir.” 

“Well, if you will permit me!” Hastily 
glancing around, he kissed her hand and 
looked at her affectionately as he walked 
away. 

And she, too, gazed after him with a feel- 
ing which, perhaps, was not yet love, but at 
any rate cordial, reawakening friendship. 


CHAPTER VIII 


From the dining-room Baron von Giind- 
lingen had entered the low-ceilinged beer hall 
at the side of the hotel. 

There at the reserved table sat the Alpin- 
ists, the admired heroes of their sections and 
unions who, as authorities, discussed in the 
technical press new, untried ascents, scaling 
peaks without guides, tours of the High Alps 
in the winter season, and similar ventures. 

With a brief greeting the newcomer sat 
down among them. Though he usually 
avoided contact with society, he was in the 
habit of seeking the circle of these men of 
similar tastes, from whom something im- 
portant could always be learned concerning 
the condition of the snow, the weather, the 
guides, and any new incidents of the season. 

Yet he remained aloof from them mentally. 
For here no thoughts, no feelings were inter- 
changed except those relating to the Alpine 
sport. This was the bond uniting these moun- 
tain climbers, so different in profession and 
nationality, rank and age, but all burned to 
the hue of copper by the brand of the glacier. 


II4 Where Snow is Sovereign 

There sat a lawyer from the Tyrol, a man 
with a bold, clear-cut face, framed by a blond 
beard, and eyes as keen as an eagle’s, every 
movement of whose powerful body expressed 
reckless daring. Beside him, a glimmering 
cigar between his, lips, was the Viennese 
dandy who, that afternoon, had brought news 
of the lady’s return from the Matterhorn. He 
had managed, by means of all sorts of salves, 
to keep his complexion uninjured, his hands, 
always encased in gloves during his expedi- 
tions, were white, and his dress, a colored shirt 
and dove-grey lounging suit, was remark- 
ably chic. In his eye glittered a monocle 
which, rumor asserted, he had worn while 
crossing the Matterhorn to Breuil in a snow- 
storm, when the guide, stricken by falling 
stones, sank by his side, and kept it on his 
face while performing the most marvellous 
feats of climbing. 

Beside the taciturn, indifferent-looking Bo- 
hemian Count sat the attorney-general from 
Hamburg, a robust man in coarse cloth and 
Y aeger shirt. During his vacation the usually 
dignified moustached gentleman paid no at- 
tention to his appearance. Up in the moun- 
tains one must climb about haphazard, and 
whatever the hotel simpletons, highway fleas. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 115 

and pass loungers chose to think of his cos- 
tume, he did not care. He wanted a few 
weeks’ rest here, where he need hear nothing 
of the imperial penal code, and his personal 
foe, the Social Democracy. 

The bushy-haired little man by his side 
was consuming an incredible quantity of beer. 
He was a Munich artist, who not only had a 
passionate love for the mountains, but under- 
stood how to reproduce their solitary grandeur 
in colors upon canvas. When the long-bearded 
dwarf, his huge ice-pick on his shoulder, went 
gliding over the lonely moraine, he might 
have been taken for a gnome who, by some 
miracle, had escaped into the Twentieth Cen- 
tury. But his thirst was so genuine and enor- 
mous that no doubt of his Bavarian nationality 
could arise. 

Then came a Berlin government refer- 
endary peppered with scars, a couple of young 
men from Vienna and Trieste, in all a true 
band of specialists, who discussed earnestly 
and eagerly all matters of interest, the advan- 
tages of the Purtschell climbing irons over 
those of Wanner, the art of throwing the ice- 
axe in front of one on the descent, etc. 

At such times a layman’s presence is little 
desired, and when Herr von Randa entered. 


ii6 Where Snow is Sovereign 

greeted Herr von Giindlingen, and was in- 
vited by him to a seat at the round table, a 
brief pause of courteous silence followed. But 
when it was seen that the newcomer, as an 
experienced man of the world, discreetly re- 
mained in the background and made no at- 
tempt to lead the conversation, the talk began 
again, and turned upon the nearest subject, 
the mountains of Zermatt. 

Of course only those more than 4,000 metres 
in altitude, with the exception of a few diffi- 
cult ones, for instance the descent of the little 
Rififelhorn on the glacier side. Serious and 
important matters were discussed — the tricks 
of the innocent-looking Lyskamm, whose 
wachte, the masses of snow overhanging the 
narrow ridge, give way under the climbers’ 
feet, and thus on one occasion five people, two 
tourists and three guides, the Knubel 
brothers, all fell into the gulf below; of the 
stone-fall on the Zinnal Rothorn, of the 
malicious Dent-Blanche, in whose steep ice- 
cliffs steps must be cut for five hours to reach 
the summit; of the ice-covered ledges of the 
Weisshorn . . . 

“ So the Matterhorn is really by no means 
the worst one? ” asked Herr von Randa. 

Several of the club men present smiled bit- 


Where Snow is Sovereign 117 

terly. They belonged to the band of malcon- 
tents who regard using ropes, pegs, and lad- 
ders on a difficult mountain as a personal in- 
sult to the true, firm-footed climber of the 
crags. The Matterhorn, they wrathfully in- 
formed the questioner, was so festooned with 
ropes and studded with iron spikes, that a man 
could go over it with his eyes shut. Luckily 
the glacier could not be treated like the patient 
rock, so the Lyskamm, and especially the 
Dent-Blanche, were still worthy and danger- 
ous mountains, over which everybody who 
came along could not be dragged with his 
eyes closed by two well-paid guides. 

“Oh, nonsense!” said Baron von Giind- 
lingen in his deep, metallic voice. “ Let every 
one enjoy himself in his own way. I like an 
easy mountain myself sometimes.” 

Herr von Randa turned to him. “ Have 
you such a mountain in view?” 

The other nodded. “ I’m going up there 
to-morrow,” he said, pointing with his hand 
into the darkness, where the mountain he 
meant was evidently towering somewhere. 

“ How high is it? ” 

“ Four thousand four hundred — or about 
that.” 

“ Then I suppose it is very dangerous? ” 


ii8 Where Snow is Sovereign 


“Not at all,” said the Baron, wiping the 
foam of the beer from his beard, “ but toil- 
some and fatiguing. Many turn back half- 
way to the summit.” 

“ But probably a great many people go 
up?” 

“At this season of the year! The view is 
superb! I am afraid the whole chalet will 
be full to-morrow evening when I get there.” 

Herr von Randa moved nearer. “ Then 
you must make the ascent in company? ” 

The cragsman nodded. “ A mountain like 
that is for every one. I can’t forbid any per- 
son from climbing in front or behind me, if 
it suits his pleasure — but of course I don’t en- 
ter into idle chatter and useless folly.” 

“ No, you ought not to do that! ” cried the 
other eagerly; “ it was only ... in case 
. . . it should not be objectionable to 

you ...” 

The Baron looked at him. “ What do you 
mean? ” 

“ Why,” — Herr von Randa hesitated — “ I 
promised my wife to go up some mountain 
with her — really with the secret purpose of 
making her utterly disgusted. Do you think 
she could climb that one? ” 

“ Perhaps so,” replied the Baron curtly; 


Where Snow is Sovereign 119 

‘‘ but usually ladies and other delicate people 
are attacked by the mountain sickness at about 
3,500. Dizziness, nausea,” etc. 

“ Indeed,” said the other thoughtfully, 
now tell me honestly, my dear Baron, would 
it be any special inconvenience to you if we, 
my wife and I, should join you to-morrow? 
It is quite a different matter to venture a 
thing of this sort with you than merely with 
guides.” 

Baron von Giindlingen turned away to 
conceal his angry surprise, and for a short 
time was silent. Does your wife know of 
it? ” he at last asked shortly. 

No! But she’ll go at once. And as you 
once helped her out of a scrape, and, as you 
say, must make the ascent in company — but, 
of course, you need say only a word, and I 
will give up the plan.” 

Only a word — true! But that word was 
more than uncourteous. And destitute of 
tact into the bargain. What motive could he 
give for having willingly accompanied Eliza- 
beth on her trip among the High Alps, when 
she was alone, and refusing now that her hus- 
band was with her? . It would surely arouse 
the suspicion that something had occurred be- 
tween them that the latter should not know,” 


120 Where Snow is Sovereign 

Wrath stirred within him at the clumsiness 
of the fate which baffled his design, wrath 
against the man by his side, who had no sus- 
picion of the danger hanging over his head, 
wrath against himself for not having courage 
to end the matter with a refusal, even though 
a blunt one. 

Yet, after all, what did it matter if they 
spent another day among the mountains under 
her husband’s eyes? They could meet the 
next morning as coldly as they had this 
evening, remain together as strangers and, 
still as strangers, part. 

Herr von Randa made a movement to rise. 
“ Don’t take my request amiss,” he said, evi- 
dently somewhat offended. “ I am appar- 
ently not thoroughly familiar with the eti- 
quette of mountain excursions.” 

Baron von Giindlingen looked at him 
keenly. “ That is just what I was going to 
ask. Have you ever climbed a high moun- 
tain? ” 

The slender, fair man shrugged his shoul- 
ders with an angry laugh. “ Why, my dear sir! 
Of course not! But the matter concerns my 
wife. And I hope you will believe that a 
sound, healthy man like myself can surely go 
as high as she.” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 121 

“Are you free from giddiness?” 

“ Perfectly. I’ll answer for that.” 

“ Yet it would be better for you to try first 
elsewhere.” The gloomy Alpinist muttered 
this under his breath. But when he saw the 
rising indignation in the other’s face, he added 
calmly: “However, no accident can happen on 
the mountain, and a man’s will is his Paradise. 
So I will be at your service to-morrow.” 


CHAPTER IX 


Elizabeth woke in the middle of the 
night. Intense darkness, profound silence 
surrounded her, and she inhaled the strange 
spicy fragrance of fresh pine boards. 

Where was she? Yes, in the little wooden 
mountain tavern on the glacier, where they 
were to spend the night before the ascent. The 
real club hut was still farther on, at the other 
edge of the valley. But it was dirty and 
uncomfortable; so, by the Baron’s advice, 
they had remained here in the neat little 
chalet. 

He himself had not arrived until late in the 
evening, when the last of the glacier ramblers 
who wandered over here during the after- 
noon had descended to the valley, and Eliza- 
beth was beginning to hope that he would not 
come at all. She had uttered a sigh of relief 
at the thought. There was not the shadow 
of a pretext for giving up, at the last moment, 
the mountain excursion which she had so 
eagerly desired, except by feigning sickness, 
and that would merely have secured a few 
122 


Where Snow is Sovereign 123 

days’ delay. Some external incident must 
come to her assistance. But nothing of 
that sort happened. Even the weather, 
which toward noon had seemed doubtfu}, 
cleared, and everything indicated a glorious 
day. 

Their intercourse during the evening was 
very brief. Contrary to their expectation, the 
chMet was wholly deserted at the approach of 
darkness. They remained the only guests, and 
in the club-house, too, as a servant coming 
down from there reported, there was not a 
single tourist. That sometimes happened, the 
landlady remarked. It was perfectly unac- 
countable how the people scattered through 
the mountains. Often there were from twenty 
to fifty at one time on a single peak, so that 
there really was not room for them all, and 
the next equally fine day not a single one 
would go up. 

After the noise and tumult, the braying of 
donkeys and shouting which had prevailed 
around the chalet the whole afternoon, the 
sudden stillness of the evening was almost 
oppressive. They had said very little 
during the meal and then, by silent assent — 
though to the annoyance of her husband, 
who would have liked to chat a little while — > 


124 Where Snow is Sovereign 

parted at half-past nine o’clock to go to their 
rooms. 

Elizabeth lay gazing with eyes wide open 
into the darkness. She dreaded the coming 
day. It seemed as if it must bring her some 
unexpected, monstrous event. 

And this ghostly silence! Not a breath of 
wind, not the faintest plash of water — nothing 
was audible except her own heavy breathing. 

Yes — a door creaked somewhere. There 
was a clattering noise above her. Heavy foot- 
steps crossed the floor, and the low whispering 
of men’s voices ran through the whole lightly- 
constructed wooden building. 

Then the stairs leading up from below 
creaked, too, and slippered feet shuffled past 
her door. Through the barking of a Spitz 
dog down below she heard a knock and the 
words: Half-past two o’clock, Madame — 

time to get up.” 

“Very well!” she called mechanically, 
groping for the matches. She had not the 
slightest inclination to rise now. The secret 
conflict in her soul and everything else faded 
at this moment before the effort of will re- 
quired to leave her bed and go out into the 
icy darkness, 


Where Snow is Sovereign 125 

There was a knock at the door of the next 
room too. She heard the same: “ Half-past 
two, Monsieur — it is time to get up ! ” and then 
an oath from her husband, mingled with a 
yawn and muttered words of which she caught 
only: ‘Mn the middle of the night — crazy 
nonsense! ” 

At the same moment another door opened. 
She knew the heavy tread which echoed 
across the floor and down the stairs. So he 
was up and dressed, while they were being 
roused. 

Elizabeth envied his resolution, and shrank 
from the tempting thought of pretending at 
the last moment to be ill and turning comfort- 
ably on her pillow for another nap. 

A dim little lamp was smoking in the room 
below, which she entered blinking drowsily. 
The clear light of the stars was shining 
through the window. Their guides, two 
sturdy, flaxen-haired brothers, were bustling 
about by the light of the fire on the hearth 
in the room next to the kitchen — rolling up 
ropes, packing knapsacks, and talking in low 
tones in their rough patois. 

Her husband was not yet there, but the 
Baron sat before the lamp, smoking a big 


126 Where Snow is Sovereign 

black cigar and thoughtfully cutting bread 
and cheese into pieces. 

Elizabeth held out her hand, and sat down 
opposite to him. She dared not meet his eyes, 
and felt that he, too, averted his gaze and 
busied himself assiduously — he had laid aside 
the cigar — ^with his bread. 

The minutes crept by in endless length. 
Their passage could be noted by the hand of 
the clock, whose ticking filled the room. 

She knew that her companion’s thoughts 
were the same as her own in this oppressive 
silence, and the unspoken secret, which could 
never be put into words, weighed more and 
more heavily upon her. 

Or would he allude to it? He was begin- 
ning to speak. Pardon my mentioning it,” 
he said bluntly, diligently cutting the bread, 
but it often seems as if ladies on these 
mountain excursions laced too tight, and 
then ...” 

No, not at all ! ” Elizabeth shook her fair 
head decidedly, and looked up at the ceiling. 

So much the better! The air at the height 
of over 4,000 metres is thin, and, with a wasp 
waist, not enough can be drawn into the lungs. 
No change can be made after leaving the 
house ...” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 127 

Again both were silent, and above their 
labored breathing sounded the monotonous 
ticking of the clock. 

Thank Heaven — the landlady came in, 
bringing in her hand a smoking jug. 

I ordered some hot milk for you,” said the 
Baron authoritatively. Put a little brandy 
into it, and drink as much as you can. But 
eat nothing, or at the utmost only one of these 
biscuits. Or you will be ill on the way.” 

She obeyed, feeling meanwhile a strange 
sense of satisfaction in knowing that she was 
again under his protection and must yield to 
his strong, calm will. 

He glanced at the clock. “ Where is your 
husband? ” 

Elizabeth rose. “ I will bring him,” she 
answered with a slight note of anger in 
her voice; he has probably fallen asleep 
again.” 

But at that very moment she heard just out- 
side his clear, pleasant laugh. Good-morn- 
ing!” he exclaimed, entering, “did every- 
body have a good night? Yes? Do you know 
what the guides are taking with them? Prunes 
and goats’ meat dried in the sun! Brrrr! It 
makes me ill to look at it.” 

The Baron drew a small package from his 


128 Where Snow is Sovereign 

woollen blouse. “ I have just the same things 
in my pocket,” he said curtly, “ and now eat 
your breakfast, that we may get off soon. We 
must cross the glacier early.” 

The star-strewn sky glittered and sparkled 
with wonderful brightness as the little party 
left the chalet. The heavenly bodies here 
burned through the ice-cold air as if almost 
within reach — far different from the heavy, 
light-absorbing mists of the plains. 

The cold was as piercing as that of a Ger- 
man winter night. The breath of the muffled 
figures rose in white clouds, and the grass by 
the wayside glistened with hoarfrost. 

Now the second guide also came out of the 
house. He carried a lighted lantern in his 
hand, and took the lead as they slowly de- 
scended the stone-strewn path. 

It was not easy. Nothing could be seen dis- 
tinctly by the flickering light wavering over 
the rough rubble. Every moment the unprac- 
tised foot stumbled or groped uncertainly in 
the darkness, and slid over slippery clumps of 
grass. 

It was extremely fatiguing; Elizabeth had 
the utmost difficulty in following the swaying 
lantern; in a short time, notwithstanding the 


Where Snow is Sovereign 129 

cold, her brow was wet with perspiration. Be- 
sides, in her opinion, she was far too warmly 
clad. By Baron von Giindlingen’s direction, 
she had drawn a woollen scarf over her ears 
under her hat, another about her neck, and 
protected her mouth and nose by a silk hand- 
kerchief laid over them. Then she wore a 
long woollen cloak, thick wristers, fur gloves, 
woollen stockings, and heavy nail-shod shoes — 
really enough to stifle her. She tried to loosen 
some of her wrappings, but the cutting cold, 
which instantly pierced to her skin, taught her 
wisdom, and with a sigh she perceived that 
again her Mentor had proved right. 

They descended lower and lower. Far be- 
neath them the solitary light swayed along in 
its zigzag course. 

But this is too ridiculous!” Elizabeth 
heard her husband’s voice say after a time. 

I thought we were to ascend a mountain, 
and here we are going lower and lower. It’s 
like entering a mine.” 

No one answered. 

“ Well — Elizabeth,” the voice came again 
from behind after a pause, “ how do you like 
this? Magnificent — the view — there’s noth- 
ing to equal it at home. And the mild air and 
smooth path.” He stopped abruptly with a 


130 Whera Snow is Sovereign 

suppressed oath. Several pebbles rattled 
down. 

Elizabeth turned to the Baron, who walked 
behind her. “ I don’t know why it is,” she 
said uncertainly, but I, too, am enjoying it 
very little to-day. I feel weak and tired.” 

A short, angry laugh issued from the dark- 
ness. 

Do you know what Napoleon said, Ma- 
dame? The only real courage is the courage 
of two o’clock in the morning! Come! 
Hurry on as fast as possible. It’s quarter of 
four already.” 

Elizabeth joined in the laugh, and nodded 
to him in the darkness. “ You are right,” she 
cried, springing with a light foot after the 
lantern. 

This now stopped. The guides consulted 
together in their Swabian gibberish, of which 
their employers caught only the frequently 
repeated word Mor-r-rane.” So they must 
have reached a glacier. Yes, the huge mass 
of ice was glimmering in vague white outlines 
through the darkness. It lay in absolute si- 
lence. The bubbling and trickling of the 
water had ceased. There was no movement 
in its crevasses. 

The ray of light from the lantern flickered 


Where Snow is Sovereign 131 

upon a lofty, tolerably steep, stone-covered 
ascent before her. She intended to climb a 
few steps, but at the very first one her foot 
slipped on the pebbles and coarse mud as if it 
was a mirror, and she fell backward. 

The Baron caught her. It is all coated 
with ice!” he said, smiling, gazing intently 
at the dirty brown wall, “ all the rubbish of 
the glacier is frozen there as hard as a rock. 
Steps must be cut.” 

Already his ice-pick fell crashing on the 
treacherous declivity, so that the fragments 
of frozen mire flew rattling around him, and 
one step after another appeared in the ugly, 
icy mass. 

At last the ladder was finished. The guide 
who had lighted the work went on again, 
held out his hand to Elizabeth, and drew her 
forward, carefully letting the rays of the 
lantern fall upon the next step on which she 
must set her foot. In a short time she stood 
at the top, and the light glided down the dirty 
wall again. 

Well, my dear Baron,” her husband’s 
jovial voice sounded from the misty halo 
around the lantern, all due deference to 
mountain folly! But if you call this pleas- 
ure ...” 


132 Where Snow is Sovereign 

“ Let the gentleman come now.” The 
guide bent forward, holding out his hand. 
Herr von Randa appeared on the top and 
gazed keenly around him. “ So this is a 
glacier,” he said, bon! I am satisfied 
with the excursion. Besides, it’s very 
interesting to share for once in this human 
delusion.” 

“Don’t I put on the rope here?” asked 
Elizabeth. 

“No,” said the Baron. “The glacier is 
level and safe. Cattle and goats are driven 
over it in the daylight. Even if there should 
be a snow-bridge, it is frozen hard now and 
* would bear us.” 

In fact they walked very easily over the 
shining ice-floor, which only here and there 
had a slight slope or ascent. The rays of the 
lantern shimmered for a long distance, re- 
flected from the surface, so that it was im- 
possible to miss the way, and the chasms 
yawning here and there could easily be 
avoided. 

In fifteen minutes they reached the other 
side and descended, by hastily cutting steps, a 
little ice-cliff on whose edge loose stones again 
creaked under the nail-shod shoes. “ Now 
your husband will abuse the mountains again,” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 133 

said the Baron dryly, “ we are entering the 
moraine.” 

And among moraines, the mire-stains of 
the Alpine world, the one lying before them 
took a high place. First there was a towering 
hill of rubbish to be climbed zigzag, then — 
the way carefully lighted with the lantern 
— they walked for a while along a sharp ridge 
scarcely a foot wide, half stepping on the 
other side, half slipping with the rolling rub- 
ble, then down again over a bit of marshy 
meadow-land which quaked and gurgled at 
every footfall, and up another lofty pile of 
stones to its top. But here the rocks were 
larger and firmer. They were obliged to wind 
their way up and down through them till 
they reached a stretch of level debris, where 
the light of their lantern was reflected in the 
pools scattered around. Here a short halt was 
made. 

“Well — thank the Lord!” said Herr von 
Randa from the midst of the black, silent 
group cowering together, “ thank the Lord 
that this delectable glacier lies behind us. I 
hope the trip will be more comfortable now! ” 
The guide beside him pointed upward with 
his hand. 

“ We shall cross the Guffeln next.” 


134 IV here Snow is Sovereign 

The Guffeln! Nothing above could be 
seen distinctly. But, in the first dusky light 
of dawn Herr von Randa perceived that a 
labyrinth of fragments of rock tumbled to- 
gether in the utmost confusion, a chaos of 
weather-beaten pieces of stone, ranging in size 
from a man’s head to that of a room, nay, 
even of a house, covered the side of the moun- 
tain. “ Well, these Guffeln do not seem cal- 
culated to arouse much confidence,” he re- 
marked angrily as the caravan prepared to 
start again. 

The guides had waited for the dawn of 
morning and now, extinguishing the lantern, 
hid it behind a boulder. A wan grey hue, 
in which objects still blended together, per- 
vaded the desolate wilderness. But one could 
already see where to place the foot, and high 
above, over the snowfields, shone a vaporous 
crimson light, like the reflection of a vast 
conflagration, in which the moon and stars 
slowly paled and vanished. 

It was a toilsome ascent from one rocky 
shelf to another, slipping down one jutting 
crag to climb the next, winding through and 
scaling the gigantic ruins of the mountain. 

“ In Norway they call such stuff the ‘ be- 
ginning,’ ” said the Baron, when they had 


Where Snow is Sovereign 135 

climbed for half an hour, it is an apt 
name.” 

His companion behind had heard. Shall 
we ever get out of this beginning of the 
world?” he shouted. 

The others laughed. This would continue 
for two hours. 

Meantime broad daylight came. But the 
overwhelming magnificence of the sunrise 
which Elizabeth had so eagerly anticipated 
was not seen. The ravine filled with rubbish, 
up which they climbed panting for breath, was 
shut in by lofty mountain peaks. True, a few 
ice-clad summits were gradually suffused with 
warm, rosy tints, but the impression produced 
by the whole scene remained cold and stern, 
nay, the stretches of snow soon assumed a 
chalky, yellowish aspect, and the sky seemed 
veiled by pale mists. The sun itself still re- 
mained invisible. It was yet low in the east, 
behind the towering mountains, and only a 
colorless brightness announced its presence. 

Meanwhile it seemed as though the chaos 
of rocks would never end! In delusive 
shelves, each one of which they fancied would 
be the ridge, they rose higher and higher, 
revealing from every new ascent another view 
of a confusion of brown-stone boulders, with 


136 Where Snow is Sovereign 

a scanty supply of water bubbling forth among 
them. 

Suddenly the Baron and the two guides, 
without exchanging a word, halted and made 
all the necessary preparations for a rest on the 
slope of a huge pyramid of stone. Spreading 
a shawl for Elizabeth, on which she sank ex- 
hausted, with trembling knees, the Baron 
brought out some wine and a little bottle con- 
taining the yolks of raw eggs. “ Drink this,” 
he ordered. “ I have more for you. It is 
the only thing you can take now.” 

She obediently swallowed the contents of 
the vial. “ These horrible rocks — how much 
longer do they last? ” 

Two paces.” Then perceiving her aston- 
ishment, he added: “We are at the verge of 
the eternal snows. But as a cold wind is 
blowing over the levels, and we are heated, 
we will rest here under the shelter of the 
cliff.” 

Elizabeth’s courage rose with the discovery 
that the Guffeln had been crossed and the 
reviving effect of her breakfast. The guides, 
meanwhile, packed everything, and began to 
unroll their ropes. 

“ I propose that we separate,” said the 
Baron, turning to Herr von Randa, “ let one 


Where Snow is Sovereign 137 

of the guides take you on a rope, and trust 
your wife to another and myself. Two novices 
on the same rope might, under some circum- 
stances be dangerous, if one had a bad slip or 
anything else happened.” 

Herr von Randa yawned. You have the 
direction of the affair exclusively, my dear 
sir. Manage this abnormal jest, in which we 
are indulging to-day, entirely according to 
your pleasure.” 

Yes — there lay the expanse of snow before 
them, its chill breath was fanning their heated 
faces. A single endless, shoreless field of 
white, where the eye lost all measurement and 
every stopping-place. Only by slow degrees 
could one perceive that this dazzling plain 
had its hills and hollows, its ravines and vast 
slopes. 

Above the crest of one of these slopes shone 
the blue sky. It seemed as if there the moun- 
tain ended, the summit was gained. But when 
the height was reached, a gleaming plateau 
stretched beyond, bounded by another hill, 
which again sloped to a new expanse of ice. 
It was impossible to discover where one was 
going, what was left behind. The monoto- 
nous, never-ending tramp through the snow 
seemed like a pilgrimage over boundless 


138 Where Snow is Sovereign 

wastes, stretching in every direction with no 
limits of space or time. 

The hard ice creaked and cracked under 
the nail-shod shoes and the regular fall of 
iron points of the alpenstocks, the rope oscil- 
lated between the figures moving on like mute 
machines, and the breath congealed into thin 
clouds of vapor in the air. Now and then a 
brief halt to examine a chasm, a jerk at the 
rope when some one stepped unexpectedly 
into a hole in the snow — then on — on — al- 
ways on. 

Thank Heaven the ridge of snow up yonder 
was glittering warmly and brightly. There 
at least was the sun, the beloved sun, for which 
Elizabeth had longed all the while. 

Her two companions stopped and, taking 
off their hats, unfastened their snow spec- 
tacles. She hesitated. “ Must I do it? ” she 
asked doubtfully. 

“ If you look five minutes at the sunlit 
snow,” said the Baron, putting on his hat 
again; ‘‘you will be half blind and have 
swollen lids and watering eyes for at least 
a week. But you can give your mufflers and 
cloak to the guide now; it will be hot up 
yonder.” 

She had already noticed this. The glacier 


Where Snow is Sovereign 139 

will receive none of the sun’s warmth, but un- 
feelingly hurls back its rays, so that they 
quiver aimlessly to and fro over its armor of 
frost, and surround the wanderer among the 
mountains with scorching breath. 

The guide put the wraps which had been 
laid aside into his knapsack, while Elizabeth 
herself was trying with unskilled hands to 
fasten the ice-spectacles over her eyes. “ Oh, 
how ugly!” she involuntarily exclaimed. It 
seemed as if the sun had already set, and the 
dull, colorless grey of early morning again 
surrounded her. No bright play of colors, no 
cheerful flicker of light penetrated the smoky 
glass and close wire meshes. It was inde- 
scribably dreary. 

She felt a light twitch of the rope. They 
were moving on. At first straight forward, 
then in a perpetual zigzag over steep snow 
hillsides, to and fro and again to and fro, one 
quarter of an hour after another, and nothing 
to be seen except grey snow, grey air, and 
the grey figures of her companions, who, un- 
der their huge spectacles, looked like queer, 
strange scientists. 

“ Elizabeth,” she once heard her husband’s 
voice call thirty paces behind her, “ what do 
you think of it: we’ll wear snow spectacles at 


140 Where Snow is Sovereign 

home in future. They are too comfortable. 
Don’t you think so? ” 

She made no reply. She was not only cross 
and tired, but physical sickness constantly in- 
creased. What it really was she hardly 
knew — a sort of oppression, giddiness, and 
nausea, which became more and more severe; 
beads of cold perspiration stood on her fore- 
head, she breathed heavily. 

At last she grasped the rope firmly and 
stood still. “ I feel very ill ! ” she said to the 
Baron as he turned toward her. 

Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he drew 
out a field-flask. 

“ Three thousand five hundred metres,” he 
said drily; that is the critical height for 
mountain sickness. There are two remedies: 
first a sip of brandy — so — secondly, clench- 
ing the teeth and saying to oneself: ‘I 
will.’ ” 

Her husband had come up. How you 
look!” he cried; your face is as white as 
chalk. Child! We’ll go back as fast as 
possible.” 

Elizabeth shook her head, and returned the 
flask. “ Go on! ” she murmured faintly, and, 
with drooping head, continued the zigzag 
walk. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 141 

“ How do you feel? ” said a voice in front 
after a time. 

‘‘ Badly.” 

Ten minutes passed. Then she heard the 
voice again. “ But you are moving forward.” 

Elizabeth frowned angrily. “ I must.” 

That’s right! ” After another interval she 
felt the field-flask pressed into her hand. 
“ Now another good sip. When we get a 
hundred metres higher the attack will pass 
off. Climb slowly — don’t lose your breath — 
you are doing bravely — you no longer look so 
yellow. Oho! now the color is coming back 
into your cheeks.” 

“ I feel better,” replied Elizabeth, trying 
to smile. 

Come, then — there — we are at the top ! 
There is His Majesty before you.” 

Elizabeth lifted her spectacles a little, and 
uttered a cry of joy. Close before her, above 
a steeply falling glacier strewn with little jut- 
ting rocks, towered the real peak of the moun- 
tain, a wild, rent, abruptly rising mass of 
stone, in which only a few streaks of snow 
interrupted the brownish shimmer of the rock. 
Far above, the point of the summit stood forth 
in sharp relief against the deep-blue sky. 

“ How is it? ” asked the Baron after a short 


142 Where Snow is Sovereign 

rest. “ Will you go on? ” Elizabeth looked at 
him in astonishment; then without wasting a 
word, took her alpenstock and moved for- 
ward. 

He seized her by the arm. ‘‘You have 
recovered your energy already,” he cried, 
laughing, “but let me go first! That ridge 
will stand no trifling.” 

This ridge was at the utmost only fifty 
metres long, but almost as narrow as the back 
of a knife, falling abruptly on both sides like 
a steep ice roof, beneath which shimmered the 
open air. 

“Be cautious — set your foot down firmly — 
don’t lean too heavily on the alpenstock — it 
may slip — slowly — don’t get excited,” said the 
voice in front of her. And, like an echo came 
the murmur of the guide behind. “ Take 
care — walk erect — slowly — ^don’t bend for- 
ward! Nothing will happen to the lady — 
slowly! ” 

They were on the other side. “ Ah,” said 
Elizabeth, “ being a woman, I really had a 
right to feel just a little bit afraid there.” 

The Baron looked at her intently. “ You 
are different from other women,” he growled, 
and then, as if regretting what he had said, 
turned again to the guide. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 143 

“ Go back. Help the gentleman across. 
Meanwhile we’ll climb up to the slope of the 
glacier.” 

On reaching it he began, without looking 
back, to cut steps in the ice leading straight 
upward. Elizabeth, stamping impatiently on 
the snow, glanced back and witnessed a singu- 
lar scene. 

At the other end of the narrow snow-ridge 
was her husband, talking with the guides. 
They seemed to be disputing about something. 
At least the men were speaking eagerly to 
him, and pointing to the place where she 
stood. He answered with a shake of the head, 
gesticulating excitedly. 

A sudden terrible suspicion seized her. But, 
thank Heaven — no — they were moving on 
again, and slowly crossed the dangerous place. 
The spectacle he presented in the middle was 
no very attractive one. But probably she 
herself had cut no better figure. 

When he reached the opposite side, Eliza- 
beth saw that his face had blanched visibly. 
His breathing was labored. “ This is a ridic- 
ulous way the Baron is dragging us, Eliza- 
beth,” he said to her, lowering his voice; ‘‘ it 
will be better for you to turn back.” 

“ Why? ” she asked coolly. I feel per- 


144 Where Snow is Sovereign 

fectly well again. And it is just beginning to 
be beautiful.” 

“ Beautiful? ” Herr von Randa glanced up 
at the ice-slope and saw the step-ladder made 
by the Baron. Are we to go there? ” 

Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders. “ So it 
appears.” 

‘^Yes — but, my dear child, consider the 
matter. Farther up those absurd steps will 
come close to the edge of the precipice. Who- 
ever slips there will plunge a thousand metres 
down.” 

“ People mustn’t slip,” she answered, laugh- 
ing. 

“ I am ready,” shouted the Baron’s leonine 
voice from above; “come! .You first, 
Madame! ” 

Her husband drew himself up. “ I won’t 
allow it. If you should meet with an acci- 
dent . . .” 

The two mountain guides had exchanged 
glances. “ We are here to prevent it, sir,” 
said one of the brothers firmly, and far more 
positively than was customary with the mod- 
est men, “ and we are entered in Baedeker 
and Tschudi as guides of the first rank, — you 
have seen our testimonials.” 

“ Come! ” called the voice above. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 145 

One of the men was already on the steps. 
‘‘Hold fast to the rope, Madame! I will 
drag you up ; it will be perfectly easy.” 

With a powerful jerk he pulled her from 
one step to another up the steep cliff. The 
second guide followed. In a few minutes they 
reached the top without incident. 

“ What is the gentleman objecting to 
again?” growled the Baron. The guides 
laughed, looked at each other, and shrugged 
their shoulders significantly. Then they went 
down again. 

Elizabeth had turned away. A deep flush 
crimsoned her face. A vague fear that she 
would be forced to feel shame for her hus- 
band stole over her, and constantly increased. 
She dared not look down the slope of the 
glacier. Nearer and nearer she heard the 
persuasive voices of the guides, and an indis- 
tinct grumble from the Baron, which did not 
sound very flattering. 

“ There — it didn’t cost you your life,” he 
said somewhat brusquely to the newcomer. 
Herr von Randa made no reply. “ Elizabeth,” 
he panted, pausing between every word, “ we 
have been persuaded into an — an utterly 
senseless adventure. I insist upon it — that 
we — turn back at once.” 


146 Where Snow is Sovereign 

His wife looked at him coldly. The Baron 
spared her the necessity of a reply. “ Sit 
down,” he said curtly; “ drink some wine — 
then you’ll think better of it.” 

“I shall go back!” retorted Herr von 
Randa sharply. His good-natured face was 
pale and bedewed with perspiration; “ not on 
my own account, of course, but for my wife’s 
sake.” 

“Your wife climbs like a weasel!” the 
Baron angrily interrupted, “ and she has 
more courage than — is necessary.” 

He paused. Elizabeth involuntarily com- 
pleted mentally what he had intended to 
say. There she stood, fearless, full of en- 
ergy, after having conquered her weakness by 
her own strength of will . . . and by 

her side — she looked her husband full in the 
face. He was exerting himself to the utmost 
to retain his composure. But she saw clearly 
what was passing through his mind. 

This man was her husband. She must up- 
hold him. A cloud of indignation darkened 
her beautiful face. “ Then we will go down,” 
she said, gazing past him into vacancy, “ if 
you are so anxious about me.” 

But now not only the Baron, but the two 
guides, who of course were ambitious to take 


Where Snow is Sovereign 147 

the party to the summit, rebelled. When 
you get down into the snow again, you will 
reproach us for having turned back,” said 
one, and the other pointed upward. 

There is only one more difficult place, 
then you can easily reach the top in an hour.” 

Elizabeth looked at her husband. He had 
taken a large draught of wine, and his 
features had regained their usual expression. 
He made no farther objection. 

A heavy hand touched her arm. Come,” 
said the Baron under his breath; ^^when he 
sees you before him, he will keep on.” 

She climbed upward with him and one of 
the guides. At first over moderately steep 
ledges, then along a smooth, short, wide ledge 
of rock, which ended suddenly at a jutting 
corner of the cliff. 

Now take your third sip of brandy,” said 
the Baron, stopping. “ I am going to dis- 
appear around this angle, but I shall not step 
off into the air, as it will seem, but on a stone 
shelf, which runs along the other side. When 
I call, ^ Now! ’ forget, if you please, that you 
‘are a woman and have a right to feel afraid’ — 
shut your eyes close, that you may not turn 
giddy at the sight of the gulf beneath you, 
swing your right leg out around the corner 


148 Where Snow is Sovereign 

and feel about until you have a firm foothold 
on the other side, then gradually transfer the 
weight of your body to it, give yourself a pull, 
draw the left foot after, and you will stand 
securely on the other side. Only don’t be 
afraid. You cannot fall. And even if you 
do, you will merely hang by the rope three 
feet down, and we will pull you up again.” 

Feeling his way carefully, he clung to the 
cliff. Then, swinging forward, the powerful 
figure vanished. Only the rope twitched 
slightly, and they heard a pebble rattle down 
the precipice on the other side. Then all 
was still. After what seemed an endless time, 
a hollow voice rose from the abyss: 

Come!” 

Elizabeth’s heart throbbed as if it would 
burst. Pale and with trembling hands she 
moved on to the fateful spot. 

Just at that moment she heard below a 
voice choked with fear. 

“Elizabeth!” Her husband’s face was 
distorted by terror. “ Back! Back! I tell 
you. This is outrageous — I won’t allow it.” 

She looked down at him with a sort of sor- 
rowful compassion. As if in a dream the day 
rose before her when she was married in the 
village church and, kneeling before the altar, 


Where Snow is Sovereign 149 

she heard the pastor’s voice: He shall be 
thy master.” 

“Come!” echoed impatiently again from 
the other side. Your master! The man 
down there with fear imprinted on every 
feature. 

But surely fear for her. When she was 
on the other side, he would certainly follow. 

“Oho — so you are really afraid!” jeered 
the resonant voice beyond the rock. 

Elizabeth started angrily — her eyes blazed 
— she closed the lids — clenched the stone 
firmly — for one brief moment her heart 
stopped beating and her breath failed. Then 
she stood on the other side, and her friend 
laughed at her good-naturedly. 

“ I wasn’t frightened,” she stammered, 
panting. “ My husband called to me just as 
I was coming.” 

“ He probably wants to kill you! ” growled 
the Baron indignantly. “ Well — sit down 
there until he comes across.” 

The rope twitched. “All right?” asked 
the guide’s voice. 

The Baron drew it taut. “Go on!” he 
cried, and the guide glided across. 

The man had wound the second rope 
around his arm, and weighed it in his hand 


150 Where Snow is Sovereign 

irresolutely. “ It’s a bad business! ” he cried; 
“the gentleman won’t come.” 

“ Why not? ” The Baron frowned. 

“ He is afraid,” the other whispered softly, 
that Elizabeth might not hear. 

But she had caught the words. An angry 
laugh escaped her lips. Starting, she covered 
her mouth with her hand. “Come!” she 
called in her clear tones; “ it isn’t at all diffi- 
cult.” 

All was still beyond the rock. They heard 
only the murmured words of the second 
guide. The first had placed himself in posi- 
tion and fastened the rope over a boulder to 
await the tourist. 

But no one came. 

“ Where is the gentleman? ” 

A pause. Then the answer came dully 
from the lips of the second guide. 

“ The gentleman doesn’t like the place. He 
is going to turn back.” 

His brother laughed, and then suddenly 
phecked himself with a startled glance at 
Elizabeth. 

“ The others would better return, too! ” the 
voice again rose in hollow tone from the 
other side. 

The Baron started and flung back his 


Where Snow is Sovereign ip 

mighty shoulders. “ I have no idea of it! If 
the gentleman wants to go back, one guide 
will be quite enough.” 

Baron von Giindlingen can do what he 
prefers ” — there was a tone of subdued amuse- 
ment in the guide’s voice, — but the lady must 
turn back at once.” 

Her friend shrugged his shoulders. “Yes 
— that now rests with you.” 

Elizabeth did not answer immediately. 
Her lips curled with an expression of proud 
contempt. She looked stern, almost cruel, as 
she answered: 

“ Do you think I ought to obey my lord 
and master this time also? ” she said harshly. 
“ To-day I feel inclined to be rebellious for 
once, come what may.” Turning to the guide, 
she added: “Release the second rope, and 
throw it over to the other man. I shall go 
to the summit with you and the Baron.” 


CHAPTER X 


Higher — ever higher up the body of the 
ice-giant, who Vainly defends himself against 
his tiny conquerors, piling up obstacle after 
obstacle to bar the way of the black dots 
creeping forward undismayed. He confronts 
them with solid rock, rotten stone that 
crumbles away maliciously under the hands, 
frightfully steep glaciers. But over them all 
winds the rope, rattles the axe, tramps the 
mountain shoe nearer and nearer to the goal. 

This is the mightiest and most exciting in- 
cident in the life of the tourist among the 
higher mountains, this last struggle with the 
colossus, this conflict waged at the height of 
4,000 metres above the abodes of men, above 
the clouds, between three feeble human be- 
ings and the immense shapes of stone and ice. 
Winding their way up in the crevices of the 
giant’s coat of mail, using every jutting rock 
as a handle, converting the glacier into a 
staircase, they pushed on skyward till they 
reached the topmost, gently-sloping stretch 
of snow, which offered no farther resistance. 
The moment of triumph was at hand — and 

152 


Where Snow is Sovereign 153 

the shouts of the guide echoed shrilly through 
the frozen realm of death. There was some- 
thing almost bestial in the cry, some touch of 
the untamed power of the lord of creation, 
the restless, conflict-seeking power, which 
urges him to the most distant corner of his 
world, to the frozen ice of the North Pole, 
the eternal snows of the highest mountain 
peaks to battle with the elements. 

Rapturous joy filled Elizabeth’s heart as 
she climbed higher and higher with the two 
men. She thought of nothing except the de- 
fiant height above her, which her eyes eagerly 
sought as they ascended. The remembrance 
of the scene with her husband, the conscious- 
ness of danger — all disappeared in this one 
feeling of indescribable joy in existence, the 
delight of bearing life, victorious and laugh- 
ing, through this world of rubbish and ter- 
rors to the very boundaries of Heaven. 

The guide, too, grew more and more merry 
the higher they went, and the more icy be- 
came the breath of the mountains upon their 
glowing cheeks. He shouted and cheered at 
every new ridge whose crest they climbed, 
every cliff they successfully scaled, and with 
his noisy exultation sometimes blended the 
loud laugh of the Baron, whose eyes flashed 


154 Where Snow is Sovereign 

with reckless daring. His face had flushed, 
his thick fair beard waved around it. In this 
mood he was indeed a handsome man. 

Elizabeth' could not help thinking of it 
involuntarily. But, almost at the same in- 
stant, an oppressive, uncomfortable feeling, 
of which she had long been vaguely conscious, 
attacked her. She could no longer get air. 
No matter how deeply she tried to breathe, 
she still had the sensation that her lungs were 
not entirely filled, like a person under an air* 
pump. 

Gasping for breath, she stood still. 

Have you the nose-bleed?” cried the 
Baron. Put a handful of snow on the back 
of your neck! That will stop it at once.” 

“ No, thank you! ” She looked up at him. 
“ But I think I am suffocating.” 

Baron von Giindlingen laughed. Yes, the 
air here is not so dense as it is in a ball-room. 
But there is enough of it. Just breathe heavily 
and don’t be frightened — it will pass off.” 

It really did pass away, though slowly. And 
there was something strangely refreshing and 
strengthening to the nerves in this thin, icy 
air, which surrounded the body like a cold 
bath and penetrated every wrap. 

Higher — higher still! The giant did not 


Where Snow is Sovereign 155 

surrender so easily. Now there was the last 
peak, shooting upward like a slender pyra- 
mid, to be scaled. They climbed this top- 
most steep point, like the slaters on a church- 
steeple. Already there was little isave air 
surrounding them. Only before and above 
them still towered, as if floating in the clouds, 
the rock which supported their feet, united 
them to the world of earth. 

So aeronauts probably feel when they leave 
the dull globe below, and mount into the in- 
finite universe. Everything down beneath 
grows smaller and smaller. The valleys 
shrivel into green ribbons, the cities into dirty 
spots of vapor. The spurs of the mountains 
unite like mole-hills, and the immense 
glaciers sink into them like silver bands. 
Strips of whitish mist rise from the depths 
beneath like the steam of a boiling kettle. 
These are the clouds which gather above the 
mountain valleys, and the poor people sit be- 
low in the rain, never suspecting that up 
above the sun is silvering the lofty ice-pin- 
nacles with radiant light, and the sky is melt- 
ing in a luminous azure which, clear and 
fathomless as eternity, arches above the ever- 
lasting ice. 

Here is the realm of death! There is no 


156 Where Snow is Sovereign 

sound except the distant thunder of avalanches 
and the howling of the wind, no movement 
except the vibrating of the snow crystals which 
it scatters over the dazzling surfaces till they 
sparkle in the sunlight myriads of glittering 
specks. Here there is neither the awakening 
nor the dying of Nature. Whether the corn 
ripens and the vine blossoms below, whether 
the May breeze blows or the autumn foliage 
flutters to the ground, here above everything 
remains rigid and white and dead no matter 
whether, during a few weeks, the sun shines 
laughing down or, during the rest of the year, 
the tempest breaks its way through the masses 
of clouds. 

And into this mysterious realm, this un- 
known world, which opens its gates only to 
the elect, they were now forcing themselves. 
Elizabeth’s heart fluttered. As she ascended, 
conquering one obstacle after another in the 
proud consciousness of courage, strength, and 
health, she felt that no one knows the true 
value of life except he to whom life itself is 
a stake in the game. What we have saved 
successfully from a thousand perils and dan- 
gers we prize highly, even beyond its real 
worth, and rejoice in its possession. There 
was something delightful in this exultant 





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Where Snow is Sovereign 157 

sporting with death, this toying with the de- 
struction which, like a threatening spectre, 
glided for hours beside them, and against 
which her whole being rebelled. We will 
live! the muscles clenched convulsively. We 
will live quivered the nerves. We will live — 
the blood pulsed through her veins, and like 
a warning, soothing voice within, her true 
self, her real inmost nature answered: Have 
no fear! I am leading you before the eyes 
of death, that you may know you live! And 
know also what you possess in life! 

Now they were almost at the top. A 
glacier peak, scarcely larger than a little 
house, was the last, easily-gained goal. Above 
it was the thin atmosphere of the lofty 
heights, surrounding her on the right and 
left, almost playing beneath her feet. Eliza- 
beth was obliged to cling to the rock, to be 
sure that she still had a support on solid old 
mother earth. 

Don’t be an inquisitive woman and look 
around you too much! Or you will be dizzy 
again,” said the Baron, sitting down in a little 
angle of the rock. Take your seat there and 
rest, that you may not be heated when you 
climb the summit.” 

The space was very small. They were 


158 Where Snow is Sovereign 

obliged to press closely against each other. 
The Baron involuntarily passed his arm 
around Elizabeth to support her. Their 
quick, labored breathing throbbed in unison 
as, with dilated, sparkling eyes, both gazed 
silently and boldly out into the boundless dis- 
tance. 

Such must be the feelings of a pair of 
tower falcons,” said Elizabeth. “ One be- 
lieves in the transmigration of souls. I might 
once have been one of those wild birds — and 
you — I think — too.” 

He turned his head swiftly toward her. 

“ Do you think so? Then we should surely 
suit each other.” His voice sounded so harsh 
and stern that it sent a thrill of fear to her 
heart. But not of him — rather of what was 
passing through her own mind. She again 
saw her husband down below there — at the 
fatal spot. And beside her sat, like a lord 
and master whom Fate had sent to her, this 
bold, kind man, overflowing with strength. 
She felt the pressure of his powerful arm, 
protecting and guarding her from falling, 
while in her ear rang his firm voice. 

We suit each other herel* she answered, 
her breath coming heavily; ** here, cer- 
tainly . . .” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 159 

There was a brief silence. She felt him 
gently remove his arm as if startled, and make 
a movement to draw farther away. But that 
was impossible. Here separation meant 
death. 

Then both gazed into each other’s eyes. 
Mute, with anxious, searching inquiry, they 
looked, beholding, as it were, two mysterious 
unknown beings, who in some incompre- 
hensible manner lived within them, had the 
same thoughts and feelings, who were in real- 
ity only themselves in the disguise of the op- 
posite sex, their reflected images, smiling 
strangely yet familiarly at them. 

They were silent, for they knew — at this 
moment their destiny was decided. 

The guide, who was sitting on a boulder 
higher up, warned them that it was time for 
departure. They climbed the last height. 

Now they were standing above on the little 
island in the midst of the sea of air. And be- 
low lay the kingdoms of the world and all 
their glories. Elizabeth clasped her hands. 
A single thought lived within her mind, a 
silent prayer of thanksgiving: Oh, Lord, I 
thank Thee that Thou hast permitted me to 
behold this.” 


i6o Where Snow is Sovereign 

Her gaze wandered over measureless 
space. From the grain fields of Lombardy to 
the vine-clad slopes of the Tyrol, from the 
green waves of Lake Geneva to the dark fir- 
woods of the Black Forest, the earth lay out- 
spread before her. True, heavy mists rested 
on these lowlands. Clouds were sweeping 
over them, which permitted only a vague 
glimpse of these countries and the lakes. But, 
from this murky lower region a thousand 
peaks towered aloft in glittering pinnacles. 
One snow-clad summit rose behind another, 
one chain of mountains joined another. All 
that was grand and magnificent in Europe, all 
that rose above the average level of the earth 
was here ranged in a boundless circle of glit- 
tering glaciers, of wild, savage peaks, amid 
which the snow-fields, in their garb of daz- 
zling white, the glaciers in their radiant play 
of color, sloped down over the reddish-brown 
lower mountains to the domain of mists and 
woods, to the valleys containing the abodes 
of men. 

There they stood, the giants of the ancient 
world, in rigid majesty, greeting one another 
across the clouds and glaciers. 

Directly in front of the lonely living 
creatures the satanic form of the Matterhorn 


Where Snow is Sovereign i6i 

reared itself in fierce defiance against the sky 
and, with the monster, its neighbors the Rot- 
horn, and the terrible shining white Dent- 
Blanche towered aloft into the blue air. 

On the other side the great gentle Breit- 
horn curved its patient back. 

Opposite glittered the shining pinnacles of 
the long range of the Italian Maritime Alps. 
And beyond them the eye wandered still 
farther away. Yonder, where the ugly colos- 
sus of the Dome rose far behind it, shone a 
multitude of towering peaks and , endless 
snows. There the giants of the Bernese Ober- 
land gathered around their Queen, the Jung- 
frau, rising in radiant splendor from their 
midst. About her were the immense colossi — 
the Finsteraarhorn dominating them all, as 
the mightiest vassal, beside it the Gross 
Schreckhorn’s clumsy figure, and the Lau- 
teraarhorns. On the other side, glistening in 
its icy covering, the malicious Blumlisalp, 
and wrapped in her robe of eternal snow, 
the Weisse Frau. 

Behind the Matterhorn a white fairy king- 
dom, a vast wall of ice, with peaks scaling the 
sky, rose from the throng of mountains. 
Ruling all Europe shone Mont Blanc and its 
highest pinnacle, the Monarch, saluted in the 


i 62 Where Snow is Sovereign 

Oberland the virgin Queen of this unearthly 
magnificence. Opposite, in the east, the 
mountains of the Tyrol defied their mightier 
Swiss comrades. The Order group soared 
above the multitude of lower crags, the ser- 
rated Gross Glockner stood in glittering 
splendor, and amid them all shimmered 
through the torn fragments of mist, like a re- 
flection of the sky, the blue waters of Lago 
Maggiore. 

No sound — no movement in the countless 
host of peaks lifting their snow-clad summits 
to the heavens. 

Rigid and terrible as eternity they stood, 
separated by dull grey clouds from the world 
below. What were the joys and sorrows of 
earth to them? So they stood long before the 
coming of the first of the race of dwarfs who 
now set their feet upon their necks, so they 
will stand when the last of the pygmies per- 
ishes in the waste of glaciers which some day 
will slowly descend from their slopes over 
the cold terrestrial ball. 

They look down on lands and seas. Yonder 
lies the German Empire, there below Austria. 
Here is Switzerland, and close beside it Italy 
— there France. But the mountains gaze in 
icy scorn upon the luxuriant life below. And 


Where Snow is Sovereign 163 

from their storms speaks the voice of eternity. 
For thousands of years we look down upon 
the motley game. The nations come and pass 
away. The ages ebb and flow. Nothing is 
lasting save death. Nothing is continual save 
change. This we, the everlasting, the lifeless, 
kpow. Petty and perishable is all that ye 
human beings do below . . . foolish are 

your deeds and hopes, a misty vapor all that 
seems to ye magnificent and mighty, and ye 
yourselves but a miserable race vanishing in 
a day. 

Involuntarily the hands of the two human 
beings on the lofty peak sought each the other 
and closed in a firm clasp, as both gazed at 
the awful splendor. 

I should like to kneel here and pray,” said 
Elizabeth softly at last. Her friend nodded: 
‘‘Yonder, above churches and mountains, 
arches the true cathedral of Heaven. And 
when we go down, we shall know: njoe were in 
it. And our eyes have seen God! ” 


CHAPTER XI 


On the way home the weather had changed. 
Fog was rising from the valleys. 

At first a single misty squadron floated 
slowly, as if reluctantly, sometimes to the 
right, sometimes turning to the left over the 
glittering glacier. Little fragments remained 
behind, creeping irresolutely hither and 
thither, while the main cloud, ascending, 
caught among the summits of the nearest cliffs, 
covering their rough surfaces with trickling, 
slippery dew. 

Other streaks of grey vapor were 
clumsily climbing the heights of eternal 
snow from other directions. They drew 
nearer, approaching each other through 
the perceptibly darker and damper air 
and, wherever they met, the rays of 
the sun vanished, the sparkle of the glacier 
was quenched, the blue disappeared from the 
sky, the white from the snow, everything 
blended in a monotonous, boundless endless 
grey, which might be air, fog, floating vapor, 
a fine, penetrating, stinging rain, or all 
combined. 


164 


Where Snow is Sovereign 165 

Wonderful was the view from above of this 
cloud-world, which mounted slowly from the 
valleys to the sky, swallowing and drowning 
everything in its grey waves. So must the 
deluge have looked! Wherever the eye 
turned a dreary shadowy chaos, in which the 
sky and the earth blended, and all the forms in 
the world vanished without a trace. Only the 
highest peaks still resisted it. Like rugged 
islands, rising perceptibly from the ocean, 
their snow-clad summits towered from the sea 
of clouds undulating around their slopes, this 
waveless, noiselessly ascending sea, this seeth- 
ing mass which, congealed to ice, encircled 
the cliffs. There was no thundering of break- 
ers, screams of sea-gulls, and howling of gales 
which stir the restless ocean. Nothing moved, 
no sound was heard here in this twilight of 
death, which, like annihilation itself, mounted 
silently higher and higher toward the sky. 

In it was engulfed all that had hitherto been 
known and loved — vainly the two lonely 
human beings searched from their snow- 
capped peak for some familiar spot. All, all 
sank in shoreless immensity. The whole world 
which usually surrounded them, their entire 
lives, their own personality — ^what hitherto 
they had done and thought and felt, the silent 


i66 Where Snow is Sovereign 

mist absorbed never to be seen more. It lay 
buried behind them, and a new, mysterious ex- 
istence awaited them, veiled by grey clouds, a 
world full of death and danger, into which, 
with laboring breath, they descended lower 
and lower. 

Sometimes, on this way down to the un- 
known land, they looked at each other in aston- 
ishment. “ So this is you — the one for whom 
I have waited all my life long, without real- 
izing, without understanding it; the one who 
takes from me my own personality, yet makes 
me richer than I am, who breaks into my life 
with destroying, devaotating power, who hurls 
me with a violent thrust from my familiar 
paths and drags me away, God knows where 
— perhaps to sin and shame, peril and death, 
this terrible, overpowering, ghostly person, 
whom I ought never to have seen, and yet who 
renders the hours of my life which brought us 
two together blessed, the only ones worth liv- 
ing.” 

United forever — they did not utter it — they 
did not clearly think it — it lurked in their 
hearts as a vague fear, a blissful, mysterious 
dread. Farther and farther down into the 
unknown region! Already the shadowy mist 
surrounded the path as they moved steadily 


Where Snow is Sovereign 167 

on, a fine spray, one hardly knew whether it 
was rain or mist, descended upon them, pen- 
etrating their garments with moisture, while 
beneath their feet slipped and yielded the 
softened, pasty snow. Then across the wild 
chaos of the Guffeln the slippery boulders 
shining with dampness, through the fluid mire 
of the moraine, over the glacier of which 
nothing could be seen in the fog except the 
level ice directly before them and, a little at 
one side, a stray chamois, which bleating 
wearily, as if it was a matter of course, was 
climbing among the gullies and peaks to the 
chalet where they had spent the night. 

The guide wanted to rest here. Elizabeth 
spoke a few words for the first time after a 
long silence. “ I should not like to stay long,” 
she said in a low tone. “ I want to get down to 
the valley as soon as possible.” 

Her friend nodded. We will go on! ” he 
called imperatively to the guide, and lifted 
the knapsack, which he had already put down, 
to his shoulders again. 

Below in the valley, where the decision 
waited. How they would find it, what was 
to happen, neither knew. 

But their steps constantly grew quicker, in 
spite of the fatigue of the long tramp, and 


i68 Where Snow is Sovereign 

the rough, stone-covered mule path, which 
wound in an endless zigzag. They had 
reached the boundaries of the tree-growth 
long before, and were walking between 
larches and storm-beaten pines, among whose 
branches the mists were floating. Already 
they were crossing wet meadows on which, 
here and there, the huts of the herdsmen ap- 
peared indistinctly through the drifting grey 
vapor, and the lowing of cattle echoed on the 
air. They passed the chapel, traversed the 
wooden bridge beneath which the turbid, icy 
waves of the Visp foamed and roared — and 
before them lay the first houses of Zermatt. 

In the foggy twilight of the late afternoon, 
the smoky mountain village produced a sin- 
gular impression. It seemed as though the 
whole varnish of civilization which it usually 
put on during the summer months had been 
washed away by the rain. The gay open 
booths lining both sides of the street had dis- 
appeared, the mule trains, with their tinkling 
bells, had also vanished, and the strangers 
whose motley throng, speaking all the lan- 
guages of the world, usually filled the dirty 
village street, seemed to have been swallowed 
up by the earth. 

The greater part of the tourists had simply 


Where Snow is Sovereign 169 

gone away at the commencement of the bad 
weather, whose continuance for the next few 
days the barometers predicted with rare una- 
nimity, but the more earnest lovers of the Alps 
were shivering in their chambers, lay yawn- 
ing in bed, or played billiards and killed time 
in some way in the smoking-room. Even the 
guides did not appear. Some were sitting in 
the taverns, some took advantage of the un- 
usual leisure to visit their families in Tasch, 
St. Niklas, or other villages in the valley. But 
for the four-story hotels, which here and there 
towered above the peasant huts, Zermatt at 
that moment would have differed in no respect 
from any poor mountain hamlet through 
whose muddy streets a cow trotted to drink 
in the rain, or a couple of herdsmen strolled 
along in waterproof cloaks and broad- 
brimrried hats. 

The nearer they approached the hotel, the 
slower Elizabeth’s steps became. At the 
thought of standing before her husband in a 
few moments, she felt an oppressive fear as of 
something base and disagreeable which 
vaguely threatened her. She was ashamed 
of this repugnance, tried to conquer it, but at 
last she stood still, gazing uncertainly around 
her. 


lyo Where Snow is Sovereign 

Close beside them was the church, and ad- 
joining it the grave-yard containing a multi- 
tude of low, weather-beaten wooden crosses, 
above which a giant one, nearly thirty feet 
high, bearing the words, Only no mortal 
sin,” leaned slantwise threateningly. Among 
the mounds a rock hewn in the shape of a tri- 
angle stood solitary and defiant. “ What 
monument is this? ” Elizabeth asked her com- 
panion. It was the first time she had ad- 
dressed a word to him. He pushed the doors 
open for her to enter. “ Croz lies buried 
there,” he replied, “ Michel Croz — a peerless 
guide. He was the first to scale the Matter- 
horn.” 

“ And was killed in doing it? ” 

The Baron nodded. He and the others. 
Hudson and Douglas are yonder under the 
stone slab. The third grave beside it is not 
Hadow’s — his body was never found — but 
another Englishman’s, who perished on the 
Matterhorn later.” 

“And this one?” Elizabeth was deciph- 
ering the motto chiselled on a tombstone — 
“ Semper idem.” 

“ That is Herr von Grote’s, who lost his 
life on the Findeln glacier. There lies a man 
from Strassburg — he was killed, I think^ on 


Where Snow is Sovereign 171 

the Lyskamm — yonder an Englishman who 
attempted to ascend the Rififelhorn from the 
glacier alone — and yet, on the other side, the 
peak is easy enough for a child — every school- 
boy goes up with any guide.” 

They went back to the wooden crosses on 
the other side. Elizabeth stood thoughtfully 
in front of the gaily-painted pieces of wood 
nailed together in the form of a cross, beneath 
which the guide Biener rested forever after 
his fall from the Matterhorn. A rude poem 
had been written on the monument, a dedica- 
tion composed by the dead man’s brother to 
his beloved friends and brothers, the moun- 
tain guides of Zermatt. In it the great mis- 
fortune to which mountain climbing had led, 
was bewailed. But the last lines struck a dif- 
ferent note: 

“Yet, therefore, Brothers, ne’er despair! 

Let each man duty do with care 1 
The Lord his mercy will not spare!” 

Elizabeth turned away, drawing her cloak 
around her slender shoulders as if chilled. 
“ Let each man duty do! ” Her lips repeated 
the words half under her breath, in helpless 
anxiety. How did the dead man below, the 
poor, uncultured peasant, suddenly illumine 


172 Where Snow is Sovereign 

the inmost depths of her heart, appeal to the 
best quality of her nature, her austere pride? 
Should she lose this, too, her self-respect, the 
aristocracy of nature? The rough Alpinist, 
mouldering below, had undertaken the duty of 
loyally accompanying another through perils 
and privations, and had died rather than to 
be faithless to his word. And she — as she 
walked slowly down the deserted street, with 
her eyes bent on the paving stones shining with 
the moisture, felt her heart beating more and 
more violently in warning throbs. 

Now they were standing before the hotel 
at the other end of the village. But Elizabeth 
could not enter. She must allow herself a 
few minutes longer respite. 

Many also lie buried over yonder,” said 
her friend gravely, pointing to the white Eng- 
lish church on the opposite hill. “ We must 
go there, too, some day.” 

She followed the direction of his hand. 

Why not at once? This is the right mood 
and the right weather,” came her murmured 
answer. 

So they went on the few hundred paces. 
The guide, at a wave of the hand, had retired 
without any expression of surprise. Inter- 
course with the capricious English mountain 



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Where Snow is Sovereign 173 

climbers had made him cease to wonder at 
anything. 

The rain fell more and more heavily as they 
passed the poor caged eagles and chamois, and 
ascended the hill to the cemetery. 

Torrents of water were streaming from the 
gutters of the church and pouring over the 
stone monuments encircling it. One English- 
man after another lay here side by side, nearly 
all men in the prime of life. “ Aged 21 ” was 
carved on one gravestone erected by a sor- 
rowing mother, and the next bore the inscrip- 
tion: fall from the Lyskamm snatched 

him from the midst of life unto death.” Close 
beside it a young widow bewailed a husband’s 
fate, a brother his sister’s, overtaken by a 
fall of stones on the Zinnal Rothorn. 

Elizabeth looked upward. Clouds veiled 
the Matterhorn, the Lyskamm, and the other 
pale giants, whose names, inscribed in letters 
of gold, adorned the gravestones. Perished 
in a terrible snowstorm on the Matterhorn.” 
“ Fell from the Lyskamm ” — could be read 
again and again, and beneath, I am the 
resurrection and the life.” 

The choir seemed to be practising in the 
church. The notes of the organ rolled with 
subdued power through the arched window 


174 Where Snow is Sovereign 

out into the grey world, and silvery girlish 
voices rose upon its swell like dancing sun- 
beams mounting skyward. Through the 
plashing of the rain, the low moaning of the 
wind, the sweet melody echoed with bell-like 
clearness. Elizabeth stood motionless. Tears 
filled her eyes. She could not keep them back. 
Infinite, yearning compassion seized upon her 
— she knew not whether for herself, the poor 
dead men below, or for any human beings, 
frail, transitory creatures, who lay under these 
gravestones at her feet, as she herself would 
lie ere many years, and her husband beside 
her — and the other one. And all which they 
had experienced and suffered would be a mere 
dream — all for which they had hated and 
loved, feared and sought each other, would 
have vanished. What would then remain of 
a whole human existence full of conflicts? 
What was this life, after all? 

Clearer and more jubilant the prayer from 
within rose through the mighty swell of the 
organ. A sudden tempest seized upon Eliza- 
beth, as if it strove to shake her out of de- 
lusion and sin. She did not raise her beautiful 
head. On the gravestone before her glittered 
in letters of gold the last submissive prayer of 
a young mountain climber: “Thy will be 


Where Snow is Sovereign 175 

done!” “Yes . . . T/ty will be done! I 

have grown weak and helpless — restore Thou 
my strength — point out the right path, and 
do unto me as we ask in the Lord’s prayer: 
Lead us not into temptation! ” 

Lead us not into temptation. She had 
clasped her hands. But the impulse which 
clenched her slender fingers, and made the 
tears roll down her pale cheeks was no prayer, 
it was a desperate mental struggle. Yes — 
yonder man was weak-natured — he was nar- 
row-minded — he was unworthy of her — it was 
the law of nature if she, of a different mould, 
abandoned him. But from the notes pouring 
warmly and jubilantly out of the church, 
through the dreary, rain-drenched world, 
echoed with gentleness and power another 
voice : “ Just because he is weak — because he is 
narrow-minded, you ought to love him as he 
loves you. Because he is not worthy of you, 
you must not abandon him : for higher than all 
else, stands compassion. You have pledged 
your faith to him, you owe it to him to your 
last breath! ” 

Elizabeth clasped her friend’s hand and, 
for the first time, looked straight into his eyes. 
“ We will not see each other to-morrow,” she 
said slowly; “ not until the next day, when my 


176 Where Snow is Sovereign 

mind will be clear and perhaps yours also! 
Until then farewell.” 

The Baron nodded silently and held the 
gate of the cemetery open for her. Leaning 
against the railing he gazed after her as, with 
bent head, but swift, firm steps, she went 
toward the hotel. 


CHAPTER XII 


If only the first meeting were over, the first 
words exchanged! Elizabeth stopped, ir- 
resolute. 

How would he receive her? She could not 
exactly imagine. At first probably with em- 
barrassment, reproaches, and anger. She 
would make no reply, but submit quietly to 
everything. The only words she could say, the 
sorrowful: “I pity you!” were better left 
unspoken. 

Yet her very silence must give him fresh 
courage. He would take it as consciousness of 
guilt, and his weak, petty nature would 
thereby gain fresh support. She saw him as, 
talking faster and faster in his wrath, and 
twisting his fair moustache, he paced up and 
down the room, scolding her in muttered 
tones with repressed vehemence, on and on, 
as he had done lately in Grindelwald, more 
and more irritated by her weary silence. 

This was all unspeakably sorrowful and 
vulgar. Yet perhaps it was well so. The dis- 
gust which must then stir within her, the in- 
dignation which would constantly rise afresh, 

177 


178 Where Snow is Sovereign 

could not fail to unseal her lips, and from 
them would fall the decisive words which she 
dared not yet utter, even in the depths of her 
heart, of which she felt a secret horror. Then, 
cold and expressionless as if a stranger’s voice 
were speaking from her lips, would come the 
sentence: “Release me! I love another!” 
The act of deliverance would be accomplished. 
Then let whatever might come follow. 

Drawing a long breath, she opened the door. 

Herr von Randa did not rise when his wife 
entered. Raising his head slowly from the 
table where he was sitting, he turned his wan, 
grief-distorted face toward her. 

Elizabeth was startled. How those smooth, 
good-natured features had changed since yes- 
terday! Despairing, bitter grief distorted 
them; mournful, hopeless sorrow looked forth 
from the watery blue eyes; the whole form 
seemed as if crushed by some heavy blow of 
fate. 

“Well — you have returned?” he said in a 
low, sad tone. 

Elizabeth nodded and went up to the table. 
She did not know what she ought to say to him. 

“Was it beautiful on the heights?” His 
voice had the same hopeless sound. 

“ Very beautiful.” Laying her hand on his 


Where Snow is Sovereign 179 

shoulder, she looked down at him earnestly. 
He was so wholly unlike what she had ex- 
pected. She felt deep sorrow for him. 

Herr von Randa waved her back. Change 
your clothes, child,” he murmured without 
looking at her, “ you will take cold in these 
wet garments.” 

Elizabeth went obediently to the next room. 
On the threshold she paused. 

‘‘Are you angry with me?” she asked 
timidly. 

“Angry?” A troubled smile flitted over 
his face. “ Oh, my dear child, — ^what does it 
matter now whether I am angry or not?” 

His head sank on the table again, while his 
wife closed the door carefully as if to avoid 
disturbing a sick person. 

When Elizabeth returned, she found Herr 
von Randa still in the same attitude. He did 
not hear her light footsteps. Not until she 
clasped his hand did he stir and make a move- 
ment as if to withdraw it. 

Holding it firmly, she sat down by his side. 
The maid brought in some tea. 

“ I ordered it for you,” he murmured ; “ you 
will need something hot after the long walk.” 

Elizabeth bowed her thanks, and filled a 


i8o Where Snow is Sovereign 

cup. “ Did you get down easily? ” she asked 
after an awkward pause. 

Her arm was suddenly grasped so violently 
that she set the cup rattling on the table. For 
the first time her husband looked her full in 
the face, his own distorted and agitated like 
that of a person suffering intense pain. 

“ Don’t speak of that,” he gasped, “ you 
don’t know what it means to me.” Then rising 
slowly, he paced up and down the room sev- 
eral times according to his former custom, 
and seemed to grow somewhat calmer. 

“ Do you know, Elizabeth,” he said at last 
in an almost careless tone, stopping before her, 
“ do you know that you came within a hair’s- 
breadth of not finding me? I was on the point 
of killing myself this noon,” he added, lower- 
ing his voice, as she looked at him inquiringly. 

Elizabeth sprang from her chair in horror. 
He turned away. ‘‘ I didn’t do it, as you see, 
I thought of some one when, in that terrible 
hour, my need was sorest. Not of you! You 
were far away with — with your friend, and 
did not trouble yourself about me, and — yes, 
you were perfectly right — after that had hap- 
pened. There was no need of doing so. But 
I thought of our child. She is still something 
we possess in common, though all else . . . 


Where Snow is Sovereign i8i 

and then I grew calm again, spent the day 
here, and sent a message home.” 

He paused, sighing heavily. 

As the poor man stood before her thus heart- 
broken, no human being could have uttered 
any words save those of consolation. 

“You must not take it so seriously,” said 
Elizabeth gently, clasping his hand again. 
“ After all, it is not so terrible. And no one 
will know it. We two — our friend and I — of 
course will say nothing; the guides will re- 
ceive a liberal fee, and no one else saw it. 
Even if they did — some one is continually get- 
ting ill and turning back in the mountains. 
There is really nothing in it. Baron von 
Giindlingen says so too.” 

Herr von Randa paid no attention to her 
last assertion, hastily invented, but, smiling 
mournfully, shook his head. “ What do I care 
for others? ” he said slowly. “ How matters 
stand between us, Elizabeth, that is the main 
thing. After what happened — I see it clearly 
myself — a woman must be able to respect the 
man she loves, and to-day — you see, I have 
always felt that you were becoming estranged 
from me — different — only I did not under- 
stand how — and I thought — it would all come 
right again, but now — yes, of course — you are 


i 82 Where Snow is Sovereign 

stronger than I — you look down upon me, 
you despise me.” 

So, with absolute pitilessness to himself, he 
uttered the words which she scarcely ventured 
to think. It gave her heart a keen pang. 
“ Certainly not,” she answered warmly and 
tenderly; “above all, forgive me. It is my 
fault. I ought to have yielded to you . . . ! ” 

Her husband shook his head. “ It was no 
fault of yours, Elizabeth. How can you help 
being a strong, energetic, brave soul? Rejoice 
that you are. But it is hard, terribly hard for 
me ... I feel it . . . the bond between 
us is completely severed.” 

Elizabeth gazed at him anxiously. It terri- 
fied her to have him place before her in these 
faint, broken words all her own thoughts and 
feelings. 

“What is to be done now?” he went on. 
“ Such things are not effaced. No, Eliza- 
beth, with the best intentions, you cannot for- 
get it. Yet some man must fill your life. You 
must look up to some one, that is a woman’s 
right. As it can no longer be I, it will be an- 
other — perhaps the Baron yonder or somebody 
else, and I shall lose you.” 

Elizabeth drew herself up haughtily. “ Do 
you doubt my duty? ” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 183 

“ No,” he answered dully. “ I know you, 
Elizabeth. You will never have a secret 
from me. You are far too proud and pure 
for that. But some day you will say it to me 
yourself. You will tell me: ^ This is an un- 
worthy condition — a marriage like this in 
which one no longer respects the other. Let 
me go.’ And then I shall lose you forever.” 

He sank into a chair, covering his face with 
his hands, and a despairing sob shook his 
whole frame. Yet I love you so deeply, 
Elizabeth — I love you with my whole heart.” 

The room was perfectly still. Elizabeth 
scarcely ventured to breathe. A man weeping 
— she had never seen it, never supposed it pos- 
sible. Yet in this moment he inspired no 
disgust, only profound compassion. He was 
weeping for her sake — for love of her, who 
already cherished in her heart the image of 
another. 

Sitting down beside him, she passed her cool 
hand across his brow. But she did not utter 
a word. She could not feign, nor could she, in 
this hour, tell this suffering man what lay in 
her soul. 


CHAPTER XIII 


Baron von Gundlingen had waited at the 
cemetery gate until Elizabeth’s slender figure 
vanished in the doorway of the Hotel Mont- 
Cervin. Then he slowly followed. 

As he went upstairs a waiter told him that 
the Professor from Munich, the little gentle- 
man with the long black beard, had called 
twice that day, and was coming again. He 
seemed to have very urgent . . . 

The Baron nodded, without clearly under- 
standing the man, shut his door behind him, 
and sank heavily into a chair. 

What was to be done now? Breathing 
heavily, he stared through the rain-blurred 
panes into the empty street. He no longer had 
any will. He felt it. He was merely drifting 
aimlessly on the flood of passion toward a 
mysterious, alluring goal. Should he try to 
offer resistance? Vain. He could do noth- 
ing more against the tremendous, defiant sense 
of power that stirred within him, the wild, 
jubilant impulse to battle for this beautiful, 
proud creature, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, 

184 


Where Snow is Sovereign 185 

snatch her from distress and peril to his breast, 
and clasp her there forever — forever. 

You will wrong a man who trusted you.” 
Of course, that was true — she was his neigh- 
bor’s wife. But the next instant he rebelled. 
An angry laugh escaped his broad breast. 
This was merely atonement — reparation for 
the wrong once inflicted upon him. His dear- 
est possession had been wrested from him, his 
own life blasted — now let another fare the 
same way. Why should he be the only one to 
mourn and suffer? 

Besides, there was a difference. He had 
been shamefully deceived by the tender smile 
and warm handclasp of friendship. But here 
nothing should be done except in the broad 
light of day. They would act honestly, and 
tell yonder man freely and plainly the truth — 
that they could not live without each other. 
Then he might do whatever he chose — submit, 
or fight to the death. The Baron went to the 
window and involuntarily bared his powerful 
muscles — fight to the death, if it must be. He 
was ready. 

If only the interval of waiting was over. 
He understood that such a decision, such an 
explanation, required time. But to sit idle 
until the day after to-morrow, with his throb- 


i86 Where Snow is Sovereign 

bing heart, in rainy weather, forced to spend 
his time either at the dreary table d’hote or at 
the rendezvous of the Alpinists, was an intol- 
erable thought, and yet nothing could be 
changed. To go into the mountains in such 
weather would, of course, be out of the ques- 
tion. 

Just at that moment some one knocked. 
The Professor entered. He was strangely ex- 
cited. His long beard, touzled by nervous 
jerks and twists, hung disordered over his 
narrow chest, and his small, jet-black eyes 
glittered with a strange light. 

What is the matter. Professor? ” The 
Baron went to meet him, gazing in surprise at 
the dwarfish artist, whose bushy, gnome-like 
head barely reached to his chest. 

“ I have a favor to ask,” he whispered, 
grasping his host’s wet blouse with both hands. 

I want you to go into the mountains with 
me early to-morrow morning.” 

“ In this weather! Are you crazy? ” 

The little man glanced timidly around, as 
if afraid that he might be overheard. 

“Just the very weather I need,” he then 
whispered mysteriously. 

“ For what? You surely can’t paint up 
there in the wind and the rain!” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 187 

The Professor uttered a jeering laugh. 

Paint — how? The bunglers, of course, paint 
with their hands and the palette — yes — to be 
sure — but I — I paint with my brains. When 
I once have the picture in my head, it’s only 
play to put it on the canvas.” 

But in this fog — you can’t see twenty feet.” 

The dwarf looked up at him with a strange 
smile. 

“Anybody can paint the mountains when 
the sun is shining,” he said in a low, solemn 
tone, “ that is no longer. Heaven knows, a 
work of art. Those are the mountains as they 
look two or three weeks in the year — but the 
rest of the time people cannot paint them.” 

“ You are a great artist. Professor, I know. 
But no picture can be composed of rain, mist, 
tempest, and darkness.” 

“One is made already!” The little man 
gazed at the floor in deep thought, slowly 
twisting his jet-black beard. “ Only it is not 
like the others — I felt it to-night. The in- 
spiration came over me. Nature is not dead, 
dear Friend, she lives. The old Greeks knew 
it — to them every tree was a nymph, the sun 
a fiery chariot drawn by four horses, the sea 
a mighty grey-haired man, and so ” — he low- 
ered his voice still more, gazing up at the other 


i88 Where Snow is Sovereign 

in anxious expectation — “ so I must paint the 
mountain spirit.” 

“ Yes — but how? ” 

The Professor passed his hand over his glit- 
tering eyes. “ I shall see him,” he said mys- 
teriously, “ when I go up to-morrow. I know 
it — to-morrow I shall behold the greatest 
thing in my whole life — I shall see, embodied 
in one figure, all that is terrible and sublime 
in the Alps. This figure must appear to me 
up above to-morrow in the ravines, the storm 
and tempest. But I cannot go alone. Any 
child would understand that. And a guide — 
you know, Baron — a fellowof that sort, even if 
he was obliged to keep his mouth shut, would 
destroy the mood by his mere presence. I 
need with me some one who will share my 
feelings, even if he cannot express them 
on canvas. You are such a man, Baron. 
Come with me. I will be grateful forever 
for the friendly service — and Art will 
also be your debtor. When the picture 
hangs in the Glass Palace, and the people 
stand before it as reverently as if in a 
church ...” 

“ You are aware. Professor,” the other in- 
terrupted, that I know absolutely nothing 
about Art, but I do understand climbing 


Where Snow is Sovereign 189 

mountains — and I must tell you that this is 
utter folly!” 

But he did not positively refuse, and the 
gnome saw his opportunity to make the da- 
ring cragsman’s mouth water. “And do you 
know where I want to go?” he asked con- 
fidentially. “ I mean to ascend the Mat- 
terhorn from the Furg glacier, reach the 
shoulder, and return in the usual way across 
the ridge.” 

“ What — and the stones — that is simply risk- 
ing one’s life.” 

“Ah!” — -the little man made a gesture of 
derisive compassion — “ so you, too, talk of 
danger. I say to myself, Art is in God’s hands ! 
He will not take me to Himself up there, so 
long as I can still handle my brush tolerably 
well.” 

The other mountain climber made no reply. 
A judgment of God! The phrase suddenly 
echoed through his heart. Should he chal- 
lenge fate now: — ^just at this time — in the 
decisive moment of his life? Defiance stirred 
in his soul. Ay — just at this time! He was 
now in the hands of destiny — let it guide him 
whither it would, and destroy him if he was 
walking in false paths. Better death than to 
sit by the stove all through the long, rainy 


190 Where Snow is Sovereign 

day to-morrow, waiting inactively for a 
woman to decide his life and future. 

I must return by to-morrow evening,” he 
said morosely, “ I have something more to 
do the next day than scrambling over the Mat- 
terhorn with you.” 

We’ll be back by evening,” replied the 
Professor gleefully, trembling with excite- 
ment, but I’ll tell you something — ^you are 
wet already, let us go up at once to the 
Schwarzsee Hotel! We shall then be nearer 
to-morrow.” 

An hour later they were climbing the mule- 
path to Schwarzsee in the dusk of evening. A 
servant carried their luggage. Wind, fog, 
and pouring rain surrounded them. 

The Baron stood still a moment. No of- 
fence, Professor,” he said, but you are per- 
fectly crazy. This is abominable weather.” 

No matter! ” The dwarf shook his head 
and, leaning on his huge ice-axe, looked 
eagerly up to the clouds — I must go up ! 
And to-morrow at this time — that I’ll swear, 
the mountains will have no more secrets from 
me.” 

Put your pick to your ear,” counselled the 
other drily. 

The little man obeyed. Yes, the axe was 


Where Snow is Sovereign 191 

buzzing. A low, crackling sound streamed 
incessantly from the cold metal. 

The alpenstocks don’t sing badly to-day.” 
The Baron pressed the sharp, polished steel 
tip close to his ear, and his face grew grave. 
“ You know what that means. The air is full 
of electricity. That indicates thunderstorms 
and the worst possible weather to-morrow.” 

Come,” said the artist carelessly, and they 
walked on. But, from time to time, in climb- 
ing upward, one of the two men raised his ice- 
axe to his ear, and again he caught the low, 
menacing hum, as if the lifeless implement 
was warning its master. 


CHAPTER XIV 


The storm-stirred air howled and thun- 
dered, a roaring noise swept through it as if 
evil spirits were chasing one another in the 
eddying sea of mist and clouds. 

Two mighty giants were contending: the 
Fohn and the Matterhorn. 

Up from the south, from the glowing 
warmth of the Italian sun, the Fohn came rag- 
ing, plunging eagerly into the cold Alpine 
valleys. The larch woods creaked and crashed 
to the ground, falling in a tangle of branches 
under its fiery breath, the herdsmen’s huts 
were flung over the meadows, a heap of whirl- 
ing beams and shingles, and its tempestuous 
blast tore the clouds in the sky into flying 
tatters. 

But against the motionless stone spectre, 
sneering scornfully above these clouds, its 
force was shattered. The cliffs repelled the 
shock. True, boulders as large as houses 
rolled down into the valley, and showers of 
stones slid over the rough ledges. Nay, when 
the roaring hurricane seized the colossus by 
the shoulders, shaking and jarring, it seemed 

192 


Where Snow is Sovereign 193 

as though the whole vast mountain rocked, 
but the shattered waves of air always divided 
against the cliffs and eddied aimlessly away 
through the ravines in the slopes. The tempest 
raved through all the defiles, whistled in the 
crevices of the rocks, and raged madly around 
the towering peaks, while in these whirling 
eddies danced and rose, blown together, torn 
asunder in wild confusion, then reuniting in 
fresh masses, the vast grey cloud squadrons. 

Farther below, toward the valley, pouring 
rain fell from this swaying, ever-varying 
world of vapor. But here above, everything 
scintillated in glittering white from the driv- 
ing wind. The clouds shook down in swift 
whirls, in millions of white specks, all the 
snowflakes they contained, and the tempest 
jubilantly seized the plaything. Here it flew 
like spray straight down upon the torn slopes 
of snow, yonder it swept against the cliffs in 
slanting masses, there the gale made it beat 
through the funnels in the rocks in confused 
drifts, and then blew it back up to the clouds 
whence it came. 

The tremendous roaring of the storm 
drowned every other sound. Its foe, the Mat- 
terhorn, could not vie with it. The thunder 
of its avalanches and crash of falling masses 


194 Where Snow is Sovereign 

of rock died away unheard amid the shriek- 
ing and howling of the unchained spirits of 
the storm, which, wrapped in whirling snow- 
flakes, circled around the cliffs. 

‘‘There they are! — I see them!” shouted 
the artist to his friend as they climbed up- 
ward, “ I’ll seize you to-day, you fellows — 
you won’t escape me.” 

His eyes were glittering, his long beard, 
snow-white with frost, fluttered in the wind 
about his lean body, which scaled the per- 
pendicular rocks with singular agility. 

“ What in the deuce do you see? ” called the 
Baron’s voice behind him through the howling 
of the Fohn, “ I’ve been crawling after you 
now for three hours with a snow-storm 
threatening in the mountains — a snow-storm 
threatening in the Matterhorn! It would be 
really laughable, if it wasn’t so confoundedly 
serious.” 

A perpendicular wall of rock towered 
thousands of feet above them, two thousand 
feet below, extending to the glacier, and on 
this terrible creation of Nature, clinging to 
tiny edges and projections, were two human 
beings, past whom every few minutes a falling 
stone pursued its threatening way — yes, it was 
indeed serious. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 195 

The artist had crouched upon a jutting 
boulder, and was gazing rapturously into the 
chaos of storm and mist surrounding them. 
The gnome-like figure up above suddenly 
made his companion feel a thrill of incompre- 
hensible fear. 

“ What do you see? ” he shouted again. 

The other did not turn his eyes from the 
conflict of the elements. 

^‘Much!” he hissed in the Baron’s ear, 

much — but not yet all! I have not yet be- 
held the final mystery! ” 

And he began to climb hurriedly up a steep 
cliff, from whose every chink and crevice 
death was grinning. 

As skilled climbers they had not bound 
themselves together by a rope. This was use- 
less here. So Baron von Giindlingen stood 
still and, raising his curved hand to his lips, 
shouted through the gale: 

“ Professor, we must turn back. You have 
seen enough for your picture. I’ll go no 
farther.” 

The dwarf turned. He could not answer. 
His voice was too weak. But his hand pointed 
upward, and a strange, malicious smile hov- 
ered around his lips. There was no other 
course. He must be overtaken, and compelled 


196 Where Snow is Sovereign 

to return. The powerful cragsman climbed 
after, his eyes fixed intently upon the fragile 
figure moving steadily upward through the 
tempest, and sometimes angrily motioning to 
him with his hand to hasten. 

One might fancy a spectre was climbing 
up yonder,” passed through the Baron’s mind, 
“ an evil spirit which, in this frightful weather, 
is leading me astray to hurl me, laughing, 
from some cliff. If I did not know the Pro- 
fessor so well ...” 

A stone the size of a nut, loosened by the 
latter, came rattling down. He stooped be- 
hind a rock to let the danger pass over his 
head and suddenly a thought entered his mind. 
Years before the little Professor had been 
struck on the head by a stone in the Bavarian 
highlands. He had lain ill for a long time 
and, after his recovery, first began to paint the 
wonderful, uncanny Alpine pictures, to which 
he owed his world-wide reputation. The in- 
jury had made some change in his intellectual 
life. Perhaps a greater one than had been 
supposed. 

Again he looked at the little man climbing 
frantically upward, and it occurred to him 
that a famous Viennese nerve specialist had 
characterized climbing the highest Alpine 


Where Snow is Sovereign 197 

peaks, the intentional seeking of danger in 
order to excite the nerves and test the 
fearlessness of death, as a form of mental 
insanity. 

At the Round Table in the Hotel Mont- 
Cervin he had jeered at this opinion with his 
companions. If he fell, it was his own affair. 
Life was a matter of indifference to him. 
Only a few days ago he had spoken in this 
way. But now existence possessed some value, 
and he perceived with horror how his ghostly 
comrade above was leading him farther and 
farther into the jaws of death. 

Was his suspicion actually true? With the 
utmost exertion he worked his way upward, 
and fortune favored him. Before a shelf of 
rock, over which the little body could not 
swing itself, he found the Professor in a half 
recumbent position, clinging to the stone. 

Help me over it, Baron,” he panted 
breathlessly. 

“Nonsense!” — the other seized him 
roughly by the shoulder — “ we must turn 
back now. I have you fast. The weather is 
growing worse every moment. Do you 
want to be on the Matterhorn in a snow- 
storm?” 

The little man gazed confusedly around him 


19B Where Snow is Sovereig?i 

as if roused from a dream. “ It is so beauti- 
ful here,” he murmured, so marvellously 
beautiful. I don’t want to leave.” 

But any child could see that we can go 
no farther — it isn’t possible even to reach the 
old hut.” 

“Yes!” shrieked the Professor; “yes, we 
must, though we should ten times over . . .” 

His next words were drowned by the deaf- 
ening thunder with which the hurricane sud- 
denly swept up. The men clung with averted 
faces to the cliff, whose solid rock seemed to 
reel under the shock of the blast. The rising 
tempest clutched them with icy arms. It took 
their breath away, made them shut their eyes, 
and blew with benumbing cold on their 
clenched hands. 

“You see!” The Baron had turned pale. 
“ That was the snow-storm — the snow-storm 
on the Matterhorn!” 

Single flakes of snow flew past, then denser, 
wind-swept flurries, finally whole clouds as 
fine as dust which, in an instant, covered rocks 
and men. The air darkened. One could 
scarcely see the distance of a few feet. It 
seemed as though night was closing in, as if 
a deep, icy darkness rested upon the whole 
mountain world, in whose ravines and clefts 



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Where Snow is Sovereign 199 

the Fohn raged howling to and fro, like a 
captive beast. 

Down, if we value our lives!” The 
Baron, with a powerful jerk, dragged his 
little companion, who no longer resisted, 
downward, and began the descent with 
him. 

It was a perilous path over the stone, which 
was becoming more and more thickly coated 
with ice, into the depths below. They were 
forced to move with the most extreme caution, 
as slowly and carefully as possible, yet the 
danger, increasing every moment, demanded 
haste. 

Utterly exhausted, they rested an instant in 
a crevice in the cliff. As the two men 
crouched there, shapeless in their muffling 
wraps, their heads covered with knitted 
woollen caps, thick scarfs around their necks, 
and the whole coated with ice and snow — 
they might have been mistaken for two lumps 
of ice. 

The storm had suddenly ceased. 

For a short time there reigned the un- 
natural stillness of the higher mountains, 
through which, far in the distance, the sinister 
muttering of another blast announced the ap- 
proach of a new and furious assault. 


200 Where Snow is Sovereign 

“ This is the way it must seem to climb a 
Gothic church steeple,” said the little man 
suddenly, glancing at the jagged cliff where 
they were hanging rather than standing. 
“You know — in the Middle Ages they put 
bread at the very top of the church steeple, 
and placed criminals below on the stone sill 
of the belfry. Then the rogues, if they did 
not want to starve, were obliged to creep up- 
ward by the stone carvings and break their 
necks.” 

“ We shall fare the same ” — the Baron was 
climbing on angrily — “ on account of your 
folly. The Matterhorn is a church steeple 
too — only one fourteen thousand feet higher — 
and at the top there is not even bread, but 
stones ” 

He could say no more, indeed, could 
scarcely make his companion understand by 
signs — the storm burst forth again with such 
deafening uproar. A bewildering swirl of 
snow-flakes eddied around the two breathless 
men, who struggled desperately against the 
gusts of wind, in order not to be hurled into 
the gulf. The fine snow penetrated all the 
openings in their clothing, filled their mouths 
and noses, and encrusted their thick gloves 
with a tough, slippery layer of ice, beneath 


Where Snow is Sovereign 201 

which their benumbed fingers could scarcely 
move. 

And the worst part of their pilgrimage lay 
before them: the passage of the long, narrow 
shelf of rock, across which, after the danger- 
ous ascent of the mountain from the Furg 
glacier, they had turned to the right toward 
the ridge. Now, in going back, they must fol- 
low the difficult path again. \ When they had 
once reached the end, the remainder of the 
descent, if they escaped the falling stones, pre- 
sented no special peril. 

Now the point was to find the right shelf — 
in the midst of this furious battle of the ele- 
ments, where the blinded eyes, blinking 
through the snow, could scarcely distinguish 
the outstretched hand. 

The Professor suddenly laughed aloud and, 
leaving the steep descent, swung himself to the 
right upon a narrow, ice-coated stone ledge. 

“Farther down!” roared the Baron, who 
was lying flat upon a shelf of rock above, “ at 
least a hundred paces farther down. I know 
it exactly.” 

The little man smiled, shaking his head so 
that his beard and hair flew touzled in the 
wind. Again a strange expression lurked in 
his eyes. 


202 Where Snow is Sovereign 

“ This is the way I If I say it, a man who 
has been up the Matterhorn seven times, and 
climbed Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa in Jan- 
uary . . 

‘‘ But I remember . . 

“ Forward! ” The little man slid along the 
ridge and cut steps in a narrow slope of snow 
beyond which the rock continued. 

Yes — of course — here in Wallis the Pro- 
fessor was master. Here he knew mountain 
and valley. 

“ Forward! ” the thin, uncanny voice came 
again through the shrieking of the wind. 
“ You can guide me in the Oberland — for the 
Matterhorn I am the right man.” 

The Baron followed. Again that incompre- 
hensible dread of his companion stirred within 
him. Yet, almost at the same instant he, too — 
he did not himself know why — felt convinced 
that the other was right. That was the way, 
and he followed him into the battle for life. 

No other name could be given to this ad- 
vance and climb, amid the storm, along an icy 
ledge, scarcely a foot wide, while through the 
whirl of snow, blocks of stone constantly flew 
from above as though hurled from the sky. 
The picks rattled upon the rocks until, break- 
ing into fragments, the ice-crust, who^e glaze 


Where Snow is Sovereign 203 

made it as smooth as a mirror, fell off, and 
the nailed shoes could tread firmly, the rope 
wound around the jutting rocks holding the 
wind-shaken figures in their half-floating atti- 
tude during the work of cutting steps across 
the ice-filled furrows, the fur-clad hand swept 
the treacherous new-fallen snow from the 
cliffs and searched for the holding-places and 
footholds which its white covering concealed. 
So, struggling breathlessly, they slowly ad- 
vanced. 

The worst was the battle with the icy wind. 
It seemed as though they were confronting a 
living creature, which was striving with all its 
powers, by stratagem and force, to hurl the 
two intruders from its domain and destroy 
them. 

With icy, viewless ghostly arms it grasped 
at them and forced them toward the abyss : it 
unexpectedly dealt them a tremendous blow 
in the back, just at the moment they were in a 
somewhat insecure position, and, as they 
pressed forward, flung itself at them breast 
to breast, like an antagonist in a wrestling 
match. Then it swiftly vanished again, lull- 
ing the wearied mountaineers to a delusive 
security, and burst with a sudden howl from 
the next ravine upon the tottering figures, be- 


204 Where Snow is Sovereign 

wildering their senses by its horrible roaring. 

Here I am! ” it muttered about their ears, 
its icy breath congealing bone and marrow; 
“here I am — death in the High Alps! You 
have summoned me! You wished to sport 
with me! Well, here I am — and in earnest! 
I do not jest. Your comrades, resting below 
in Zermatt under wooden crosses and stone 
slabs, know it. And the others know it, those 
whom I keep in the crevasses of my glaciers 
until some day, after long years, the sunbeams 
lay bare their bones to the light of day. The 
skeletons know it, sitting somewhere in the 
eternal snows, far from the eyes of men, still 
clad in hat and blouse and Alpine shoes, while 
the Alpine jackdaws peck the last shreds of 
the flesh from their grinning skulls.” 

Death in the High Alps! But they were 
still living — they were still breathing! 
Farther — farther yet. Surely the ledge must 
come to an end somewhere. 

And, for the first time in the midst of this 
march of death, the Baron realized: It is a 
form of madness which urges us and all the 
others who, without compulsion or necessity, 
trifle with destruction in the mountains. Our 
lives do not belong solely to ourselves. No 
matter how solitary we may be, others have a 


Where Snow is Sovereign 205 

part in them. True — so wild an expedition 
as they had undertaken to-day was rare. Their 
own club members, he knew, would reproach 
them on their return, and the painter’s plea 
that it was for Art’s sake would not be under- 
stood. But would they return at all? If so, 
then this should be his last expedition of the 
kind. His resolution was firm on that point. 

According to his estimate, they still had 
about fifteen minutes more climbing before 
reaching the end of the cliff. Suddenly the 
artist stopped directly in front of him, grip- 
ping the rock with both hands to protect him- 
self from the furious blasts of the Fohn, and 
peering over his shoulder down in front of 
him. 

The Baron worked his way forward as near 
as the narrow ledge permitted, and shielding 
his eyes from the wild whirl of snow with his 
hand, tried to discover the continuation of 
the shelf. 

There was none! The ledge of rock broke 
off suddenly and completely. The cliff went 
on farther in a sheer precipice, above their 
heads it rose perpendicularly, and no firm 
foothold could be seen below. There was 
nothing except flying, eddying snow-flakes, 
swept here and there in whirling clouds by 


2 o 6 Where Snow is Sovereign 

the tempest over the fathomless gulf be- 
neath. 

There was no longer a doubt: They had 
chosen the wrong ledge. They had lost their 
way — in the midst of a snow-storm, and with 
evening approaching, lost their way on the 
Matterhorn. 

This was no longer danger — it was im- 
minent death! They could not go forward, 
and to climb back over this terrible path with 
the rising gale behind them, to trust them- 
selves again, a few hundred feet below, to 
another ice-covered wind-swept ledge of rock, 
which perhaps also might not prove the right 
one — promised little hope of a successful re- 
sult. 

The Baron looked silently at the Professor, 
who, wedged between the projections of rock 
by his side, was gazing with glittering eyes 
into the chaos, as if desiring to absorb all the 
confusion of the elements and compose a new 
creation, never before beheld. There was 
nothing to be gained by reproaching him. 
The artist’s life was in the same peril as his 
own. But he did not seem to notice this. He 
was looking very happy, while his lips mut- 
tered broken words inaudible amid the roar- 
ing of the tempest. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 207 

What is to be done now, Professor? ” the 
Baron shouted with all the force of his lungs 
into his ear. 

The little man made a gesture of annoy- 
ance. Don’t disturb me!” he cried, his 
lean face, around which the beard now hung 
in perfect icicles, assuming an evil, malicious 
expression; “ we will get down. Only let me 
look now! This is the great moment! ” 

Again he stared greedily at the dance of 
the rent mists and snow-flakes beneath his 
feet. It seemed as though some mighty force 
was dragging him into the mysterious abyss 
echoing with hollow thunder. 

His companion angrily turned away. To 
talk with the crazy gnome now was idle. He 
groped his way back a few feet along the 
ledge. A gust of wind, which, howling, 
seized him by the shoulders from behind, 
forced him to stand still. But the same power- 
ful blast had also torn aside the flying squad- 
rons below. For a moment he could see thirty 
or forty yards beneath, and there — yes, there 
was escape! There, like a narrow, dim rift, 
a chimney ran perpendicularly from above 
down through the mountainside. 

The sole difficulty was to enter it! A slab 
of rock, the size of a small room, closed the 


2 o 8 Where Snow is Sovereign 

entrance, protecting it from falling stones and, 
at the same time, from the foot of man. 

He must take the risk of descending over 
its edge into whatever might be below. 
Swiftly unwinding the rope, now frozen stiff, 
he fastened one end around an obliquely jut- 
ting projection, and then threw it over the 
slab beneath. Next, stripping off his gloves — 
for, with their ice-covered surfaces, he would 
have whizzed, without check, along the slip- 
pery rope into the depths — he thrust them into 
his pocket. They could no longer talk amid 
the roaring of the storm. So, by signs he made 
the Professor understand what he meant to 
do. Then, clutching the rope with both hands, 
he let himself down into the raging sea of air 
below. A twitch of the fingers, a loosening 
of the arms, and, as he hung there in empty 
space, dazed by the eddying snow-flakes, vio- 
lently shaken by the Fohn, he would have 
flown like a falling stone through tempest and 
clouds to the glacier in the valley beneath, to 
be shattered into atoms. But, with a grip like 
steel, he slid slowly down the rope. Now the 
shelf of rock was already above him. Giving 
himself a swing, supported by the dangling 
hemp, he reached a foothold in the chimney. 
Here, for the moment, he was safe. Even the 


Where Snow is Sovereign 209 

fury of the hurricane was baffled in this 
gloomy ravine-like furrow, which sank be- 
neath him into space. It was certainly nar- 
row enough, and what was worse — he did 
not know how far the rope reached! It must 
be sacrificed here! There was no possibility of 
cutting off a portion and fastening it to 
another projection. For in this smooth chasm, 
covered here and there in patches by frozen 
snow, nothing of the kind appeared. .What 
might be below the spot where the end of the 
rope waved to and fro in the wind, God 
alone knew. If there was no support for foot 
and hand, they were again lost. 

He slid cautiously down, half swinging, 
half bracing himself with shoulders, elbows, 
knees, and boots against the rock. Sometimes 
the chimney grew so narrow that there was 
scarcely room for his body, and he hung half 
his length over the cliff, then it widened again 
so that he could clamber unimpeded. 

Now, panting for breath, he stood on a 
ledge of rock at the end of the rope. A glance 
into the whirling snow beneath gave him fresh 
hope. True, his eyes could not penetrate the 
cloud — but unless they wholly deceived him, 
a snow-covered, solid shelf of rock gleamed 
twelve or fifteen feet below. 


210 Where Snow is Sovereign 

The hurricane had somewhat subsided. 
Only far above, on the upper heights of the 
mountain, a furious whistling and thundering, 
with which the wind raved around the top- 
most peak of the Matterhorn, echoed beneath. 
But usually it now died away for short inter- 
vals of rest in long-drawn wailing and moan- 
ing, which reverberated slowly along the icy 
slopes. 

Look out!” A voice, hoarse and sharp 
like the scream of a bird of prey, rang from 
above. Directly after a long, thin object 
flew whizzing through the air, an ice-axe 
which, turning over and over in the wind, 
vanished with the speed of lightning. 

At last!” muttered the man below sul- 
lenly, rubbing his numb fingers before he put 
on his gloves again. So the Professor had 
decided to follow him and, in the emergency, 
had thrown away his ice-axe which he could 
no longer use in climbing. 

Yes — there he appeared in the chimney. A 
black mass, descending by jerks through the 
white flakes, and with another “ Look out! ” 
and a sudden fall, rolling at his feet. 

The Baron seized and held him. The two 
men sat side by side in the snow. 

The Professor, laughing loudly, clasped his 


Where Snow is Sovereign 21 1 

friend’s right hand with both his own. He 
seemed to be in the gayest humor. His eyes 
sparkled. “I thank you most warmly!” he 
exclaimed, his face fairly radiant with happi- 
ness. I thank you from the very depths 
of my heart, my dear friend. Now I have 
it!” 

“ What? — a path down yonder? ” 

The little man waved his hand contemptu- 
ously. 

Never mind the path. We’ll find one! 
The Matterhorn will not harm either of us! 
But I have the picture — the picture, you 
know, which has hovered before me for years. 
Now I have what the mountains are. Now 
they have been forced to yield up their secret 
to me. Now I will paint a picture before 
which people will stand with folded hands, 
and scarcely dare to look at me when I come 
among them.” 

The Baron rose with effort. The dwarf’s 
wild words made him more and more un- 
comfortable. 

“ Go on,” he said gloomily; we must keep 
close to the cliff all the way down just as it 
is, now that we have no rope and only one 
ice-axe.” 

A tremendous clattering was heard above, 


212 Where Snow is Sovereign 

coming swiftly nearer and nearer in threat- 
ening bounds. A boulder of vast size shot 
over the steep cliff into the valley. Be- 
neath the white covering of snow flashed 
sparks of red fire, wherever it struck the rock, 
and the loud rumble echoed a long time from 
below. Other, smaller fragments of stone 
followed. Amid the raging of the tempest 
their swift, fatal course could be watched, and 
when the wind lulled one could hear their 
menacing rolling and rattling. 

Only forward — escape as quickly as pos- 
sible from the domain of this terrible fall of 
rocks. Again the climbing at the risk of life 
began, down in a zigzag course over ice- 
sheathed cliffs, on steps hastily cut across 
steep ice-slopes, half sliding, half clambering 
through the chaos of rocks and snow, on, still 
on, beneath the hail of stones which the moun- 
tain hurled upon this most dreaded of its 
flanks. 

The foe could scarcely be seen or heard. 
Suddenly shooting out of the snow-storm, 
whose roaring drowned its approach, it van- 
ished as swiftly in the gloom. As the soldier 
in battle sees above him the clouds of shells, 
hears about his ears the horrible buzzing of 
the bullets, they perceived above their heads 


Where Snow is Sovereign 213 

boulders leaping in wide circles, shattering 
into fragments, felt beside and around them 
stones often barely the size of a clenched 
fist, shooting swiftly down. 

‘‘Forward!” the Baron shouted through 
the storm. “ Forward, if the miracle that we 
are to escape alive is to happen.” 

The Professor laughed. “ There is no 
need,” he shouted from above to his com- 
panion. “ You know what the old song says: 
‘ Every bullet doesn’t hit! ’ ” 

“ Do not blaspheme,” replied the other in a 
dull tone, swinging himself with a swift turn 
of the shoulders past a jutting ledge, “ it will 
not aid us. Here we are in the hands of a 
Higher Power.” 

The dwarf was about to make some mocking 
answer, when his glance fell upon a broad 
opening of the couloir below. “ Triumph! ” 
he shouted shrilly, “triumph, Baron! There 
is certainly the gully leading down. I’ve 
been looking for it a long time — that’s 
the right way. A highroad for people like 
us.” 

True — they had ascended through the cou- 
loir. On the ice-covered slopes could still be 
seen, partly covered by the snow, traces of 
the steps cut in the morning. 


214 Where Snow is Sovereign 

The Baron cast a searching glance down- 
ward. “ If the falling stones strike us there” 
— he murmured. 

Oh, nonsense — falling stones ” — the little 
man glided into the fissure as nimbly as a 
weasel — “ so long as you are with me there 
is no danger. The Matterhorn and I are good 
friends. The mountain told me so — up yon- 
der in the storm. ^ I like you! ’ it said. ‘ I 
will do you no harm.’ ” 

And, while they wound their way down 
through the rift, the rattling of the falling 
rocks actually did cease very suddenly and 
mysteriously. The wind only moaned in oc- 
casional gusts far above them, the swirl of 
snow-flakes grew less dense, and the air began 
to be perceptibly lighter. 

You see,” the Professor was climbing 
steadily on. I knew it. We shall get down 
very comfortably. We’ll reach home in a 
few hours, and early to-morrow morning at 
sunrise I shall be before my canvas. You 
may look, friend, if you are quiet. It will 
be the . . .” 

He had turned his head, glancing upward, 
and suddenly an expression of incredulous, 
wondering horror flitted over his face. 

The Baron’s eyes followed the direction of 


Where Snow is Sovereign 215 

his, and every muscle suddenly grew tense. 

There comes Death! ” was his only thought. 

No single stone was rattling down. No, 
with a deafening crash and din, a whole mass 
of debris came rushing through the couloir, 
stones of every description, from the size of 
walnuts to clumsy blocks, dashing right and 
left against the sides as they poured, with the 
swiftness of the wind, toward the two men 
who, held captive between the rocks, were 
forced helpless to await them. 

And yet — the fraction of a second remained. 
With a tremendous bound the Baron, already 
almost beneath the terrible hail, swung him- 
self upon a tiny shelf jutting from the side of 
the ravine, which afforded a bare foothold. 
Almost at the same instant the fall of stones 
thundered around him, sparks of fire flashed 
from the smitten rock, through the dust of the 
pulverized rubble splinters of ice and snow 
flew into the air and, amid the clattering mass, 
a dark something, whimpering like a little 
child, swept with it into the depths — a help- 
less, lifeless something, rolling heavily to and 
fro, which had just been a living human 
being. 

The Baron could not look after the Pro- 
fessor. He felt the weather-beaten little ledge 


2i 6 Where Snow is Sovereign 

yielding beneath his feet and separating from 
the cliff. Still, as a cool-headed cragsman, he 
grasped with both hands along the boulder 
for some support, the other leg still hastily 
groped for some crevice, some edge in the 
slanting surface. There was nothing. Every- 
thing, crumbling, yielded around him, his 
foot swung in the air, his body began to 
fall. 

The next instant he was lying on his back, 
head downward, and felt that he was slipping 
faster and faster. He experienced no pain. 
He knew that his head, now and again, struck 
a rock, but his mind remained clear and un- 
clouded. 

With incomprehensible rapidity his whole 
previous life passed before him. What he 
had done and suffered, thought and desired, 
unrolled before him in varied, vivid pictures 
— up to that last momentous hour the day be- 
fore. 

Again he beheld her face, the beautiful 
bright face, around whose cheeks, faintly 
flushed by the mountain air, golden locks flut- 
tered. Again he heard her clear, ringing 
voice, ever sweeter, ever more silvery, in rush- 
ing harmonies which, swelling higher, curving 
into radiant rainbows, caressed his ear. It 


Where Snow is Sovereign 217 

sounded like music from another world, colors 
of supernatural brilliancy danced before his 
eyes — then came a heavy blow. The bright 
world vanished, all grew silent and still — 
darkness surrounded him. 


CHAPTER XV 


Intense darkness — a stifling, impenetrable 
darkness, which seemed as though it could be 
touched by the hands — no sound — no move- 
ment — all life drowned in one vast, endless 
night. 

Was this death? He did not know where 
he was. He did not even tremble at the 
thought that perhaps he was lying in his coffin, 
far beneath the earth. 

But he was still breathing. And slowly 
came the remembrance that a long while ago 
— it might be hours, days, or weeks — some- 
thing had happened to him. He had fallen — 
yes — that was it — slid down from a crumbling 
stone into an unknown gulf, which still held 
him captive. 

He repeatedly drew a quick, deep breath. 
That caused no special difficulty. There was 
no doubt of it: he lived! The fall had not 
killed him. So it could not have been very 
far. 

But how did it happen? He knew how 
steeply the mountainside here sloped down 

218 


Where Snow is Sovereign 219 

to the valley. No matter — if only he was 
uninjured. 

He cautiously moved his arms in the dark- 
ness. His right hand struck a hard, cold sur- 
face. It must be ice-glazed rock. And at 
the same time he heard — the first sound except 
his own heavy breathing — a light, rustling 
noise. He grasped at it. It was the torn end 
of a leather strap wound about his wrist, trail- 
ing on the snow. 

According to the custom of a good moun- 
taineer, he had carried his ice-axe fastened 
by this thong. Some violent pull, a severe 
jerk, must have broken the stout band. Now 
he understood: in sliding down, the sharp 
double teeth of the pick had caught some- 
where among the projections and crannies of 
the cliff. Like an anchor it had stopped the 
fall. The leather uniting it to the uncon^ 
scious form probably broke, but the descent 
was checked, a smooth ledge which, by good 
fortune, here jutted from the sheer precipice, 
caught him. The surface was covered with 
snow. He heard it creak under him and felt 
its dampness. But how large it was, where it 
ran, the darkness prevented his discovering. 

He stretched out the right foot, then the 
left. Both were free from pain and unhurt, 


220 Where Snow is Sovereign 

But the left leg, when he moved it toward 
the side, extended into the open air. So he 
must be lying on a narrow shelf close to the 
verge of the abyss. 

At this discovery he suddenly raised himself 
and now perceived, for the first time, how 
heavy his head was. An intolerable, painful 
burden weighed on one side. It seemed as 
though some one had pressed a lead cap aslant 
over his hair, and poured lead across his right 
temple and head down to his beard. 

But beneath this strange, stiff covering, as 
he sat erect, thin lukewarm streaks trickled 
down his face. He tore off his glove and felt 
them. It was something moist and sticky. Of 
course — it was blood. 

Blood which had flowed and frozen in the 
cold, held his head imprisoned like an op- 
pressive weight — blood which now, at his 
hasty movement, gushed forth fresh and warm 
beneath the crust. 

He grasped some snow, pressed two balls 
the size of his fist upon the trickling streams, 
and lay down at full length again. In a short 
time the bleeding ceased. 

So he was wounded in the head. No 
wonder — after such a fall! 

Stretched on his back, he gazed up into the 


121 


Where Snow is Sovereign 

darkness. How far had he probably dropped? 
When day dawned, he could doubtless dis- 
cover. But would he live till that time? 

Perhaps so. The air was now cool, but 
mild. The snow had, as usual, lessened its 
intense cold, and nothing was heard of the 
tempest except occasionally a single moan out 
of the gloom far up the peaks. So he would 
not freeze. And his wound was scarcely 
mortal. If he retained strength enough, at 
daybreak, to drag himself farther, if the 
guides sought for him and were successful in 
finding him, he might once more rejoice in 
the light of the sun. 

And then? Terror suddenly seized the 
heart of the lonely man. She expected him 
to-morrow. Perhaps she had already told her 
husband how matters stood between them. 

If this had occurred, the poor, kind-hearted 
fellow probably hated him now with all the 
strength of his weak soul, as we hate a wild 
beast which, destroying everything, breaks 
into a peaceful fold. He would lose his wife, 
his home, his happiness, his faith in mankind 
— all — all through him! 

If the poor fellow knew how his fierce 
enemy was faring now — how, helpless in the 
lonely night, he was struggling with death on 


222 Where Snow is Sovereign 

a distant snow-cliff — no — even then he could 
give him no pity! 

But neither must he expect it from the other. 
He himself had experienced all this, he was 
doing nothing except to repay all the grief and 
suffering which had been inflicted upon him. 

Something stirred in the silent darkness. A 
clattering came from above — a rattling in long 
leaps. Twenty — thirty feet — away it swept 
whizzing down, a heavy shock — several sparks 
of fire glittered through the gloom — then the 
noise died away in the distance. 

The falling stones! His hands clenched. 
Would not Death yet release his grasp? 

No, there again echoed the thunder, far off 
in the distance. That must be a huge block. 
Probably it fell into fathomless depths. He 
did not hear it strike. 

So it could not be late in the night. About 
midnight, he knew, the rock-fall ceased en- 
tirely when, the air losing its warmth, the 
rocks froze firmly in their beds of snow and 
ice. 

But how long was it before that time? And 
meanwhile here he lay on his narrow snow- 
bed, waiting for the death which, at any 
moment, might shoot down upon him invisibly 
from the darkness. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 223 

If there was only one faint glimmer of 
light — only one minute’s escape from the hor- 
rible gloom, so that he might at least see the 
menacing foe. Hopeless! His matches, with 
everything else, had dropped out of his pocket 
in the fall. And his eyes vainly searched the 
sky for moon and stars. They, too, had van- 
ished, swallowed up in the dense raven-black 
clouds of darkness. 

It would be best — not to think of the danger. 

If he escaped it — if he lived — no, he could 
not help that other man. He must deal with 
the matter as he could. He himself had once 
been compelled to do so. 

True, he was strong, and the other was 
weak. He bore the blow like a man. The 
other would sink under it. 

But again, in this hour of peril and death, 
defiance, the fierce, battle-loving conscious- 
ness of power stirred within his breast. If 
the man is weak — why, that is his misfortune. 
We are not here to sustain the feeble. Let 
them perish. That is the curse of the uni- 
verse I 

A howling, whistling noise swept through 
the darkness. Close beside his head, raised 
suddenly as he started, fell with a thundering 
crash a heavy block of stone which, with ^ 


224 Where Snow is Sovereign 

bound, leaped farther on downward into the 
gloom. Splinters of rock rattled from the cliff, 
and the air he breathed was filled with dust, 
that gritted between the teeth. 

Involuntarily his hand groped for the spot, 
now free from snow, where, two inches from 
his head, destruction had rested a moment. 
Drops of cold perspiration stood on his brow. 
He felt defenceless in the hands of omnipo- 
tent destiny. 

Fate played with the weak, as well as those 
who believed themselves strong. Again the 
blood trickled down his face, his senses began 
to fail. And, in the wandering confusion of 
his thoughts, a low warning voice seemed to 
say: “ Let Fate take its course. Do not inter- 
fere with its decree. Your fate is the fair- 
haired young wife down below. Whatever 
she decides amid bitter struggles and burning 
tears, whatever she is willing to answer for 
to herself and to her conscience, should be 
the sole verdict upon your future. Accept it 
silently, without urging or opposition.” 

This stone-fall was the last. The air blew 
upon the senseless form with a colder breath 
and, high above in the sky, after the passage 
of the hours, transparent, glowing fiery flecks 
announced the approach of the sun. 


CHAPTER XVI 


A RAINY day, endless in its monotony, lay 
behind Elizabeth. 

The storm had howled around the hotel, 
dashing torrents of rain against the windows. 
The guests had yawned, and then obeyed the 
summons of the luncheon bell. They had 
yawned again, turning the pages of half-cut 
novels, sought the dining-room once more for 
dinner, and spent the evening shivering in 
their rooms. 

A dead day, a grey void in life. It seemed 
as if she had been entirely alone from morn- 
ing till night, with herself and her thoughts. 
Yet, during the whole time, her husband had 
left her only half an hour. This was on ac- 
count of a telegram, which — strangely ad- 
dressed paste restante — he expected. She no- 
ticed with what a singularly earnest, searching 
look he gazed at her while putting on his hat 
and coat to go across to the post office. 

They had talked together too. And quite 
constantly. But she no longer remembered 
what the subjects of conversation were. In- 
different remarks between strangers. She had 

225 


226 Where Snow is Sovereign 

not been able, during the entire day, to make 
any allusion to the burden on her mind — when 
the thought arose, one glance at his pale, sor- 
rowful face was enough to drive it away. 

No — she would wait. To-morrow, when 
she had seen her friend again and tested her- 
self and him, perhaps her mind would become 
clearer and she would find the escape from 
every doubt. 

Yet fear constantly seized upon her at the 
thought that everything must now be en- 
tirely different. The whole structure of her 
life would fall into ruin about her, like a 
crumbling building, and something new 
arise — something unknown which she could 
not clearly imagine. 

True — this need not be. She could stay 
quietly within the narrow familiar walls, if 
she possessed the strength to do so. It rested 
solely with her. But this last long rainy day 
had again taught her what the outlook would 
then be — endless, monotonous dreariness, in 
which she would consume her life in lonely 
yearning. 

Now morning had come. 

Elizabeth had risen early and gone down- 
stairs to get the fresh air outside. 

The rain had ceased. • Groups of tourists 


Where Snow is Sovereign 227 

and guides were standing in the village street 
in front of the hotel. They seemed to be 
eagerly discussing something, and now and 
then one of them pointed upward with his 
hand toward the right where, behind the 
gradually dispersing clouds, rose the Matter- 
horn. 

Whether it would really appear that day 
was doubtful. The sultry, oppressive South 
wind was still blowing from the Italian 
frontier up the Theodule pass, and the barom- 
eter obstinately indicated gales and thunder- 
storms. 

Under the piazza of the hotel two tourists 
of the Higher Alps were discussing, with 
grave faces and subdued voices, a piece of 
news which had evidently just been brought 
by an employe of the house, who stood ex- 
pectantly before them. 

“ If that’s all,” said the Bohemian Count, 
blinking through his monocle up at the Mat- 
terhorn, they have spent the night some- 
where among the rocks.” 

But they said positively that they would 
be back at the Schwarzsee Hotel by even- 
ing — ” the square-built Hamburg attorney- 
general looked very anxious — “ and now the 
people there have just telephoned — ” A 


228 Where Snow is Sovereign 

young Viennese mountaineer nodded. “ It is 
too foolish. In such weather! The Matter- 
horn is not yet to be trifled with.” 

From the Hotel Monte Rosa, where the 
English club members gathered, smoking 
their pipes and yawning, a thin, elderly man, 
in a woollen blouse and knee-breeches, came 
down the street to make inquiries in the name 
of his companions. 

“ Good-morning, Sir William — ” the 
Count, with a troubled face, shook hands — 
“ we know absolutely nothing! It is not at all 
improbable that two more names may be on 
the death list to-morrow.” 

He did not know that the young, slender 
woman standing behind him trembled as she 
devoured every word. Now she swiftly ap- 
proached. 

Excuse me, sir ” She was struggling 

to remain calm, but her voice shook with fear. 

Do you mean that an accident has hap- 
pened? ” 

The Bohemian nobleman and the Scotch 
laird courteously raised their caps. “ It may 
be so, Madame,” said the former, “ whoever 
challenges the Matterhorn so boldly . . .” 

“ But, for Heaven’s sake, who — who ? ” 

she broke in. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 229 

“ Two gentlemen without guides. Baron 

von Giindlingen and the little ” The 

young man stopped and made a movement 
as if to aid the lady, whose face had blanched. 
He feared that she would faint, and now, for 
the first time, it occurred to him that she 
had returned from a long expedition with 
the missing man the day before yester- 
day. 

So she was evidently a friend or relative. 

He cleared his throat. 

“ Don’t despair, Madame — there is no bad 
news yet.” 

She stared fixedly at him. 

“Yes — is no one looking for him?” she 
asked hoarsely; “ will nobody go to their assist- 
ance? ” 

“ Why, certainly — as soon as it is known 
that anything has happened, the guides will be 
alarmed and go out. But it is too soon yet. 
Probably they have spent the night in some 
ravine in the rocks, and will come down in 
the morning. In that case it is too early for 
them to reach Schwarzsee.” 

“ Thank you,” Elizabeth turned away and 
walked down the village street as if in a dream. 
She could not grasp the thought. That he 
should be taken from her — he — just at this 


230 Where Snow is Sovereign 

moment — no — that was so improbably cruel, 
so absurdly cruel — no — that could not 
be. 

Some one beside her bowed. She recog- 
nized the two brothers who had been their 
guides on their expedition to the mountain 
peak. The two young men stood cap in hand, 
smiling obsequiously, evidently anticipating 
another profitable excursion. 

Do you want to earn some money? ” Eliza- 
beth asked quickly, a great deal of money? 
Yes? Then take your ropes and axes, and 
whatever else you need at once, and go 
up to the Matterhorn — yonder where the 
two gentlemen went yesterday. Do you 
know? ” 

The two men nodded somewhat angrily. 
Expeditions without guides, which brought 
them no money and gave the mountains a bad 
reputation, did not please them. 

“ Then go up there and find out what has 
become of the gentlemen. I will pay what- 
ever you want — only be quick.” 

The two guides exchanged a significant 
glance, nodded again, and set off at a run, their 
heavy, nail-shod shoes clattering over the 
pavement, to their home. Five minutes later 
they tramped with a long, steady stride, ac- 



“THE VILLAGE STREET 




1 

\ 


Where Snow is Sovereign 231 

companied by the inquiring shouts of their 
comrades, out of the village. 

Elizabeth went back to her husband. 

He was sitting at the breakfast table and 
looked at her wonderingly. 

“ You are frightfully pale!” he said slowly, 
“ and where have you been? Has anything 
happened? ” 

“ Yes, Baron von Giindlingen has been 
missing — since yesterday — on the Matter- 
horn.” 

She marvelled that she could say this so 
quietly. Herr von Randa rose and uttered a 
low whistle through his set teeth. Who says 
so?” 

“ Everybody down below is saying that he 
is in danger.” She moved nearer to her hus- 
band as if to hear a word of consolation from 
his lips. But it did not come. His face dark- 
ened steadily as he gazed at her. “ This seems 
to agitate you very much, Elizabeth,” he mut- 
tered at last. 

She made no reply. 

“ Well, of course,” he went on, “ he is an 
acquaintance of ours, though we have known 
him only a few days. But you are not usually 
so easily excited, Elizabeth — or, at any rate, 


232 Where Snow is Sovereign 

you do not show it. I can’t remember that you 
ever lost your self-control at any mischance. 
While now, God knows why — you are trem- 
bling from head to foot.” 

His wife remained silent. 

If he himself had any suspicion — she could 
not lie. Her pride rebelled against deceit and 
hypocrisy. Let him guess what she was no 
longer able to conceal. 

“ Elizabeth,” he approached her beseech- 
ingly, “will you give me no answer? ” 

She looked up. “ What shall I say? You 
see it. He is in danger, and I am anxious about 
him.” 

“ Why, yes — but more than is necessary for 
— for a stranger.” 

“ He is no stranger! ” Almost against her 
will the words rushed from her lips ; “ he 
stands nearer to me than any one else in the 
world! ” 

Thank God now the truth was spoken. For 
a time silence reigned. Then her husband 
drew a long breath. “ Tell me, Elizabeth,” he 
asked in a low tone, with quivering lips, “ do 
you know what it means when a woman says to 
her husband that a third person stands nearer 
to her than he himself? ” 

“ Yes, I know.” 


Where Snow is Sovereign 233 

Yet you say it to me? ” 

I must.” 

Her voice sounded hard and firm. Herr 
von Randa, with shuffling steps, moved slowly 
away from her. His slender figure reeled as 
though under a heavy blow. She heard his 
half suffocated breathing as he went on to 
the door of the adjoining room. 

She was following him, but he waved her 
back. “ You have told me all, Elizabeth,” he 
gasped with difficulty, “ it will be better now 
for us to remain alone — during the next few 
hours — and say nothing more to each other.” 

The door closed, separating them. 

Through the thin partition stifled, de- 
spairing sobs sometimes reached Elizabeth, 
who stood motionless at the window, gazing 
down into the street. But, cruel and wicked 
as she seemed to herself, at this moment she 
felt no pity for the weakling within. She 
could not. All her thoughts, her whole being 
struggled to reach the distant, cloud-veiled 
chasms, where now perhaps her fate and hap- 
piness lay buried. 

Hour after hour passed. She did not stir. 
She dared not hope and pray — she seemed 
frozen, every nerve and muscle tense with 
expectation. 


234 Where Snow is Sovereign 

Meanwhile the report of another accident 
on the Matterhorn crept through Zermatt in 
troubled whispers. It reached the hotel draw- 
ing-rooms where the fat old ladies sat crochet- 
ing, it buzzed through the groups of tourists 
standing idly about, and filled the air in the 
harsh patois of the guides. It received the 
travellers arriving at the station, it wandered 
with mule-drivers and porters up to the moun- 
tain hotels and spiced the talk at luncheon, 
from which the word “Matterhorn” sounded 
ten times as often as usual. 

Then the rumor seemed to thicken and as- 
sume a firm, tangible shape. Alpinists hurried 
singly through the streets, called others from 
the hotels and went with them to the other end 
of the village, the guides ran hither and 
thither, hurried to their houses and the taverns, 
and came out again with ropes wound about 
their bodies, snow-spectacles, spyglasses, pro- 
visions and brandy. At first singly, then in 
groups, finally by dozens, the brown-clad fig- 
ures gathered in the streets. Eagle-feathers 
and chamois beards nodded from their hats, 
ice-axes glittered, the sound of subdued 
voices, the calm murmur of experienced men 
quietly consulting together, rose to the hotel 
windows. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 235 

Elizabeth had watched all these prepara- 
tions from above with increasing terror. She 
felt paralyzed, and could not summon strength 
to go down and learn what the men evidently 
knew. At last she tore herself away from the 
window, and scarcely knowing what she did, 
seized her cloak, hat, and alpenstock and sud- 
denly stood among the guides. 

“That is she!” whispered one of them to 
the patriarch of the expedition, a white- 
bearded, weather-beaten Italian. He took off 
his hat. 

“ Did Madame send out the Wegener broth- 
ers this morning? Well I We have news from 
Schwarzsee. They saw one of the gentlemen, 
the little one, lying dead on the snow by the 
Furg glacier.” 

“ And the other? ” 

“ We do not know whether he is alive or 
has perished too. We are going up now, thirty 
guides. Madame may be sure that we will 
find him. How — we don’t know.” 

The band of guides moved off in silence, 
tramping and clattering heavily along. Here 
and there another came out of some house, 
others still were in advance of the party. 

A throng of curious spectators, tourists, 
waiters, shopkeepers, marched mutely with 


236 Where Snow is Sovereign 

them, accompanying the men to the end of 
the village. There they gradually dispersed. 

Only the most intimate friends and com- 
rades of the lost men, half a dozen experienced 
Alpinists, went on with the guides to 
Schwarzsee. 

Among them was Elizabeth. She thought 
of nothing, considered nothing, a blind im- 
pulse to reach the scene of misfortune and 
obtain entire certainty, urged her forward. 
Neither the gentlemen nor the guides made 
any protest. She was known recently as a 
good mountain climber, and they had seen 
her in the company of the missing man. 

So the little band went up to Schwarzsee, a 
sorrowful, silent procession, which wound 
slowly, like a huge brown serpent, in a zig- 
zag course through the warm mists up the 
mountain. 


CHAPTER XVII 


The mountains do not give up their victims 
easily. Whoever belonged to them alive, must 
remain theirs even in death. 

Covered with snow, hidden in rifts in the 
rocks and crevasses in the glaciers, they seek 
to conceal the corpse from the eyes of the 
searchers. And when at last it is found, it 
seems as if this rigid, lifeless mass itself re- 
sists leaving the mountain with which it has 
become united. It clings to the stone, ice binds 
it firmly to the ground, and, when the pick- 
axe has severed this tie also, the blood, as a 
black crust, holds the head to the stone against 
which it was shattered, and it is difficult work 
to divide, with pocket-knife and the thin edge 
of the ice-axe, the hard, sticky covering. 

Still more difficult is it to get down with the 
lifeless body to the valley. It cannot be car- 
ried. Men need their hands too much to 
secure their own safety. So it is cautiously 
lowered by ropes from cliff to cliff, from ice- 
slope to ice-slope. Innumerable are the times 
that the Manila rope catches in the jutting 
237 


238 Where Snow is Sovereign 

stones and the stiff, cold form remains fast 
among the rocks, whence it can be released 
only at the risk of life. 

Often even this method of transportation is 
impossible. Two of the guides who recov- 
ered the little artist’s body remembered well 
the fate of one of their comrades, who died 
in the old hut on the Matterhorn. Since there 
was no other way, they had been compelled to 
throw him over a cliff more than a thousand 
feet high, and when the body, frozen as hard 
as a stone, reached the foot, a large portion of 
its limbs had been lost. 

Slowly, with many jerks and much pulling 
and slackening of the rope, the little Professor 
glided stiff and stark down the heights which 
he had so nimbly ascended the day before. 
His waxen yellow face was painfully distorted. 
The livid lips were half parted as if in sor- 
rowful astonishment, so that the sharp white 
teeth showed between them, and the hand 
which had conjured such a wonderful glow 
of color upon his canvas was clenched for the 
last time in powerless wrath. 

Yesterday this had been a man ! The guides, 
whose brown figures were everywhere outlined 
in strong relief against the grey stone, as, with 
watchful eyes and low, quiet words, they let 


Where Snow is Sovereign 239 

the blood-stained bundle glide with the tense 
rope over frozen slopes and steep ledges, the 
guides, it is true, did not know how famous 
a mortal ! To them one gentleman ” was the 
same as another, the only distinction being 
whether he climbed the mountains well or 
not. 

But yesterday that still, blood-stained Thing 
had breathed like themselves. To-day they 
felt alien to the lifeless mass, which they 
gripped firmly and unfeelingly, like a favo- 
rite tool. But the intangible part, through 
which this shattered mass belonged to man- 
kind — ^where had that gone? 

The eternal mystery of the world was pass- 
ing dimly through their poor, untutored 
brains. They looked grave, and did not utter 
a word except in connection with their 
work. Only sometimes, in climbing down, 
one glanced into the valley below. There, 
through the clearing atmosphere, gleamed 
the white churches, there bells were ringing 
and the organ pealed, there were salvation 
and truth. There every Sunday morning, in 
the mist of the incense at early mass, it was 
revealed to their devout souls whence man 
came and whither he was going when the 
mountains destroyed his body and, free from 


240 Where Snow is Sovereign 

every doubt, their chests drew in the cold 
breath of the heights. 

At the Hotel Schwarzsee they made a bier 
of planks and placed the dead man on it. 
Over the body was placed a coverlet upon 
which he, the evil-tongued scofifer, was 
obliged to fold his hands, and a few Alpine 
flowers, edelraute and edelweiss, found while 
climbing down the mountain, adorned the 
handkerchief bound about his bruised head. 

All the English people had come out of the 
hotel and were standing around, deeply 
moved. The sun broke through the clouds 
and flooded with rosy light the pretty pale- 
faced girls who pressed, horrified, into the 
group. 

The last blow of the hammer, fastening a 
loose board more securely, echoed with a hol- 
low sound. A low whisper ran through the cir- 
cle. “ Has the second one been found, too? ” 

One of the guides shook his head. “ The 
others are still searching for him,” he said in 
broken English, with a strong accent, em- 
phasizing each syllable, as he had learned in 
the winter. 

Then, from the side, from the rocky heights, 
sounded the sliding and rattling of rubble. 



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Where Snow is Sovereign 241 

All heads turned in that direction. A young 
fellow who, on account of his eighteen years, 
had not yet obtained a certificate, but went 
out as a volunteer with his cousins and 
brothers, the mountain guides, came bound- 
ing down the slope. He flew from rock to 
rock, slid, leaning on his alpenstock, like 
lightning through the debris, shouting from 
the distance in his incomprehensible patois 
some tidings to his companions. 

There was an excited stir among them. The 
guide who had just spoken, after a short 
pause to collect his stock of words, turned to 
the English gathered around him. He has 
been found,” he said in his school-book Eng- 
lish. “ He is wounded in the head. But he 
is alive.” 

Oh — indeed!” came in a chorus of glad 
relief from Albion’s open lips. 

“ They can only bring him down this even- 
ing to the new hut above, two leagues from 
here,” the man went on, “ because he is still 
unconscious. Now we must get the doctor 
from Zermatt.” 

A young American stepped forward. He 
was a physician, and of course ready to render 
the first assistance, if any one would take him 
there. The guide raised his hat. Are you 


242 Where Snow is Sovereign 

a mountaineer? ” he asked. “ The way to the 
hut is easy, but there are some places where 
you must climb.” 

Yes, the New York doctor expected that. 
He hastily made his preparations, provided 
himself with the most necessary remedies and, 
swinging his long alpenstock, set off with the 
guide at a run. 

Meanwhile the others silently took up the 
bier. Six men, sometimes alternating with 
their comrades, bore the lifeless form down to 
the valley. Twilight was gathering as they 
descended the bridle path. Now and then 
they met servants and muleteers, who rever- 
ently raised their caps to the dead man, then 
a party of Americans, ladies and gentlemen, 
on mules. They were chatting and laughing 
gayly, but suddenly reined their animals to 
the side of the road, while the conversation 
abruptly ceased. 

At the village below hundreds of people 
were waiting for the procession, which moved 
slowly through the street. The faces of the 
population expressed horror and sympathy, 
but no surprise. Only too often, during the 
season for the ascent of the High Alps, it 
chanced that one of these silent guests made 
his entry into Zermatt. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


The candlelight flickered dimly in the little 
dirty hut, which stood completely hidden 
in the dusky solitude of rock on one of the 
slopes of the Matterhorn. The few people 
whom it afforded room to shelter were 
grouped around the physician, silently ren- 
dering what assistance they could while he 
busied himself with the injured man, and 
then looking on as he put the finishing touches, 
bound a wet cambric bandage over the wound, 
and washed his hands in a pot filled with 
snow-water melted and then cooled in the 
open air outside the hut. 

He spoke German with tolerable fluency, 
having studied several terms in Berlin. 

“ It is hard to say! ” was his reply to the 
eyes fixed upon him in anxious inquiry. “ The 
external injuries are not severe, they will heal 
in a short time. But the prolonged uncon- 
sciousness — though possibly it may result 
solely from the loss of blood and the 
cold ” 

“ And if that is not the case? ” 

The young American supposed Elizabeth 
243 


244 Where Snow is Sovereign 

to be the wife or sister of the wounded man. 
He hesitated a little before replying. 

There is an effusion of blood in the 
ear,” he said at last, and also an injury of 
the outer ear. So it is possible that the blood 
has flowed in from outside. But it is also pos- 
sible that it comes from within ...” 

“And then?” 

“ Then the patient might never regain con- 
sciousness.” 

He turned away to avoid looking at the 
young lady, and gathered up his surgical im- 
plements. But when he stood erect again he 
saw, to his astonishment, that Elizabeth was 
perfectly calm. “ Are you going now? ” she 
asked. 

The American nodded. The prospect of 
spending the night in this miserable hut was 
by no means tempting. “ I can do nothing 
more at present,” he said. “ Early to-morrow 
morning I will join some of the guides who 
are coming up, and I think we can safely take 
him down to Schwarzsee.” 

Yet his tone did not sound very hopeful, and 
as he clasped the hand which Elizabeth ex- 
tended, his face wore a grave, troubled ex- 
pression. 

Then he went out with one of the three 


Where Snow is Sovereign 245 

guides. The others, who were to remain in 
the hut during the night, two elderly men, 
removed the traces of the surgeon’s work as 
well as they could — the blood-stained bits of 
wadding, the red splashes of water on the 
floor, and the locks of hair which had been 
cut away. 

The Baron’s two friends, the Bohemian 
Count and the Hamburg attorney-general, had 
also remained in the hut. The former had his 
monocle in his eye, and was listening listlessly 
to the wind whistling around the summit of 
the Matterhorn, where he himself had stood 
a week before. Then he glanced at the 
clock. 

It will soon be dark, Madame.” 

Elizabeth nodded her fair head indiffer- 
ently, almost without looking at him. 

I think,” he went on, “ it is time for you to 
go down to the hotel too. Our friend will go 
with you. I shall spend the night here. It is 
quite sufficient for one person to stay besides 
the guides.” 

think so, too,” said Elizabeth quietly, 
“ and I will remain here.” 

The two Alpinists exchanged glances of 
astonishment. But, after all — what had they 
to do with the relations existing between this 


246 Where Snow is Sovereign 

slender, fair-haired lady and the comrade 
who lay motionless with closed eyes on the 
straw? And then — a sick man — and the pres- 
ence of the two guides — under these circum- 
stances she might probably venture to defy 
the gossip of the world. 

I doubtless understand nursing better,” 
Elizabeth added in the same quiet, expression- 
less voice. Of course I cannot prevent either 
of the gentlemen from spending the night 
here. But I believe we shall only be in one 
another’s way and benefit no one. In case of 
necessity, the two guides are here.” 

“ But suppose the patient should grow 
worse? ” 

Elizabeth shook her head, gazing at him in 
surprise with her large, cold eyes. “ Then 
you can render no more aid than I. But, if he 
survives the night, it will be far better for you 
to bring the doctor and guides up from 
Schwarzsee as early in the morning as possible, 
than to spend the night here lying on the dirty 
straw, staring at the candlelight.” 

“ You are right, Madame,” said the Count 
irresolutely. The thought of flirting in the 
drawing-room of the Schwarzsee Hotel that 
evening with the pretty English girls was cer- 
tainly tempting. Besides, neither he nor the 


Where Snow is Sovereign 247 

attorney-general knew the wounded man in- 
timately. They had been roped together sev- 
eral times on exciting mountain ascents. That 
is a great proof of mutual Alpine confidence, 
but it imposed no other obligation than the 
offer of help in time of need. And as more 
skilful aid was at hand . . . 

The Hamburg cragsman had prepared to 
go, and stood waiting at the door. Once more 
the Count glanced irresolutely around the hut 
— the cold, gloomy room — the heavy breath- 
ing of the injured man — the wind whistling 
outside — and below, by the blazing fire on the 
hearth, the beautiful daughters of Albion, 
with their frank gayety and somewhat robust 
grace. Well then,” he said resignedly, if 
I’m turned out here, I have the honor to bid 
you good-night, Madame.” 

As they opened the door a gust of sultry 
air swept in. Elizabeth followed them. Cau- 
tiously, to avoid falling, she went outside of 
the hut and gazed after them. 

Twilight was already approaching. Dark, 
black masses of cloud were floating toward the 
valleys. Farther above they grew thinner. 
Spectral, leaden-grey streaks of vapor ex- 
tended from them and, as Elizabeth looked 
down, she saw a livid flash of lightning glide 


248 Where Snow is Sovereign 

through the wall of clouds. She did not heed 
it. Her whole being seemed frozen. 

Will he live ? Will he die ? Monotonously, 
inexorably the question darted through her 
brain. In the hurried throbbing of her pulses, 
in her heavy breathing, she fancied she 
heard the regular repetition of the three 
words. 

And if he did die? 

She closed her eyes, shuddering. Fear 
clutched her heart. She could not follow out 
the thought. 

No, she would not believe it. He must live. 
But then? Again the mysterious, torturing 
anxiety seized her. Then the conflict would 
begin, the hardest struggle of all, the battle 
with herself. Or really — it was no longer a 
battle. She felt that she would yield. She 
would give up everything — everything — for 
his sake. 

It had grown almost dark. A hollow rum- 
bling that shook the air rose from the depths 
below. It began with a low roaring, increased 
to thunder, and then died away again in sullen 
muttering. 

She was startled, and pushing the door 
open with trembling hands, entered the 
hut. 


Where Snow is Sovereign 249 

Is that an earthquake? ” she asked hastily. 

One of the guides, an old Frenchman from 
a Swiss-French village in Valais, had risen. 

The thunderstorm is raging in the valley 
below, Madame. It is not dangerous to us, 
but ” 

A crash — a glare which for an instant made 
everything as light as day, a subterranean 
roar as if the mountains were shaking. The 
guide sprang to the wooden shutters and 
closed them. “ The lightning darted upward 
instead of down! ” he cried. “ That is often 
very dangerous. The wife of an English 
nobleman was once killed in that way on the 
square in the Oberland.” 

Elizabeth did not hear him. She was kneel- 
ing beside the straw bed, her slender figure 
shaking with silent sobs. He was living 1 The 
thunder clap had roused him. He gazed 
quietly around with eyes wide open, and his 
hands were groping over the coverlet. 

Elizabeth clasped the right hand, pressing 
it convulsively. “ I am here,” she murmured, 

I am here — and all will be well. The wound 
is not dangerous.” 

The Baron nodded and, with a low groan, 
laid his head back upon the pillow. 

“ Where am I? ” he asked after a pause. 


250 Where Snow is Sovereign 

In the cabane, sir,” said the guide, step- 
ping forward, “ but you must lie still and talk 
very little, the doctor said ...” 

The heavy thunder outside delayed the 
answer. 

And the Professor? ” he began again sta- 
ring up at the ceiling. Have you found 
him?” 

The guide was silent. “ Yes,” replied 
Elizabeth, trying to smile; “ we hope he will 
recover too ...” 

The Baron made a gesture of mingled 
wrath and amusement. “ Why do you de- 
ceive me? ” he muttered. “ I know that he is 
dead. He deserved it. So did I. It is a 
miracle that I am still alive.” 

A man who spoke so clearly and calmly 
could not be severely injured. Elizabeth bent 
over him, her voice was trembling with joyous 
emotion. 

You will live,” she whispered, and be 
quite well again soon.” 

He gazed up at the beautiful pale face, 
around which her curling golden hair shim- 
mered in the candlelight like a halo. An ex- 
pression of passionate love glowed upon his 
features. 

“ It is a joy that you are here,” he said, a 


Where Snow is Sovereign 251 

tender smile hovering around his lips, “ a great 
joy! It will make me well soon.” 

Elizabeth involuntarily released her hand 
from his clasp. Don’t look at me so,” she 
said in a troubled tone, rising slowly. “ It 
would be better to shut your eyes and go to 
sleep again.” 

He did so. I will do whatever you com- 
mand.” His voice sounded gentle and 
dreamy. Everything, everything — it is such 
happiness to live again, and not to be 
alone.” 

His thoughts seemed to wander. He mut- 
tered a few unintelligible words, then his 
deep breathing showed that he had fallen 
asleep again. 

Asleep in spite of the thunder rolling out- 
side more and more heavily. Elizabeth could 
not endure the close hut. An exultant feeling 
of joy sent her out into the darkness, the thun- 
der, where she was alone with herself and the 
passionate emotion surging in stormy grati- 
tude. 

Not too far, Madame,” cried the guide in 
warning tones. 

Elizabeth shook her head. “ I won’t go far! 
I will stay close to the hut.” 

Pressing her back against its low stone wall, 


252 Where S?tow is Sovereign 

she stood outside in the darkness. The night 
wind blew around her in soft, moaning waves. 
She inhaled it in long, delicious draughts, 
leaned forward to meet it, to feel the clasp of 
its mighty, powerful arms, and closed her eyes 
smiling when, with too impetuous tenderness, 
it strove to tear her away in its flight. Then 
the wind swept on. She opened her eyes 
again, and gazed once more into the black gulf 
at her feet. 

Suddenly there was a flash below. The 
whole mass of clouds beneath shone in a trans- 
lucent, glowing red, as if woven of fire. A 
deafening rattling and crashing rolled through 
the blood-hued, strange forms into which the 
mist had gathered, only to vanish at once again 
in darkness. But already a dazzling shaft zig- 
zagged through the gloom from the side, an- 
other darted from the opposite direction — 
again the spectral fairy world shimmered out 
of the darkness a moment, as if the^earth had 
yawned and was casting the reflection of its 
fiery heart into the air; again it vanished like 
a breath, while the thunder, reverberating 
from every direction, blended into a single 
endless, rising and falling roar. 

Elizabeth would fain have shouted jubilant 
greetings to this vast, glorious world. The 


Where Snow is Sovereign 253 

storm‘ below — the clouds whence lightning 
blazed over the earth and peals of thunder 
terrified the trembling mortals in the valley — 
and she here above, throned on the tempest- 
beaten cliff, sublimely raised above the death 
and destruction, fear and sorrow now rushing 
in the whirlwind through the groaning valleys 
and plains — such must be the feelings of a 
God. 

He laughed at the human beings down be- 
low, their maxims, their narrow bounds. 
He did not share their views. He believed in 
the power which made the tempest rage exult- 
ingly as lord and master through the High 
Alps. He believed in the passion whose burn- 
ing glow was finding vent in flaming thunder- 
bolts below, no matter who was overwhelmed 
by destruction. He believed in Himself and 
His happiness. He was forging it amid the 
sparks flying below — pitilessly, unsparingly. 
Why should we have compassion on the weak? 
Let them herd together in the valley below, 
and enjoy their petty lives — here above is 
power. Here is grandeur . . . 

Another flash of lightning darted forth and 
now, for the first time, she saw how the moun- 
tain chains glowed in its light. Suffused with 
flame, the snow-white monsters stood motion- 


254 Where Snow is Sovereign 

less for a moment in the black night, their fan- 
tastic crags and peaks outlined in dazzling 
radiance against the gloom, which suddenly 
closed over them again from both sides, like 
a surging sea. At every flash the majestic spec- 
tacle was repeated. The giants appeared, 
linked hand in hand, amid the glare and the 
thunder, the black night greedily engulfed 
them, and the hurricane accompanied the 
ceaseless conflict of the Titans with the music 
of its mighty voice, sweeping through ravines 
and over heights. It was too much for human 
eyes. Elizabeth, half-blinded, groped her way 
to the door and into the hut. There she sat 
down on the hard wooden bench opposite to 
the sleeper and gazed at him — a long, long 
time. Her features expressed sullen deter- 
mination. Her lips were closely compressed. 

I will not give you up ! ” a voice within rang 
like an echo of the exulting and thundering 
outside. “ No — no — and again no! I will not 
give you up! I will set myself free — I am in 
the right when I release myself from petty, 
everyday life to follow you — up into 
the proud, brave world where we both be- 
long ...” 

There was a light, shuffling step beside her. 
The other guide had stolen out of the next 


Where Snow is Sovereign 255 

room in his felt slippers to see if anything 
was needed. 

Elizabeth nodded to him. Everything is 
going well! ” she said joyously in French. 

The modest man smiled. She noticed for 
the first time how regular and clear-cut were 
the features framed by his black beard. 

“ Thank God,” he said, almost solemnly, 

the gentleman will live. He will be spared 
to Madame and her children.” 

She glanced up in surprise. Of course — he 
thought she was his wife. Most of the guides 
probably supposed so, and he, a Frenchman, 
could not understand what they had said in 
German. 

One could see how happy Madame was 
when the gentleman roused just now,” he went 
on. ‘‘ My own eyes were full of tears.” 

Really.” She was touched by his sym- 
pathy. 

The quiet, pleasant man nodded. I lost my 
wife three months ago — I know what it is! 
And what it means for a child to lose its 
mother, like my little ones at home.” 

“You poor” — Elizabeth did not know 
just what to say to comfort him — “ if I can 
help you in any way ...” 

The French-Swiss smiled sorrowfully. “ I 


256 Where Snow is Sovereign 

thank you, Madame. But you have just gone 
through so much yourself, and my little ones 
are well cared for. They are my only joy, 
when I go down so tired and they come run- 
ning to meet me — and — now ” — again he 
smiled half questioningly — Madame surely 
knows herself how one’s heart feels ...” 

His simple words thrilled her with sudden 
terror. 

She nodded hastily. ^^Yes, I have a little 
daughter too,” — she said in a low tone, turn- 
ing away. 

He misunderstood the movement and, be- 
lieving that she wished to remain undisturbed, 
drew back and lay down by the side of his 
snoring comrade. 

Her little daughter! 

She was overwhelmed with troubled amaze- 
ment as she realized that, for the last three 
days, she had not once thought of the child. 

Surely not from lack of affection. She idol- 
ized the sweet little fair-haired darling, and 
had shed burning tears when she parted from 
her at the beginning of the journey. 

Perhaps that was the very reason that Edith 
had not consciously entered her mind during 
the conflict of these hours. The little thing 
belonged to her. The child was merely a part 


Where Snow is Sovereign 257 

of herself. Its fate was hers, however matters 
might turn. 

But what a fate! 

She was depriving it of its father and its 
home. She was committing it to a stranger 
who, with the most rigid fidelity to duty, 
could not love it as we love our own flesh and 
blood. 

How she and the man below loved the little 
golden-haired creature whose photograph he 
always carried in his breast-pocket and often, 
when they were alone together, drew out to 
show her with a smile, pressing it to his lips. 

He was certainly a good man. His feelings 
were more tender and sensitive than those of 
the wounded giant, who lay with clenched 
hands, breathing heavily, on the bed of straw 
before her. 

And the father — a terrible dread crept 
slowly into her soul — would the father volun- 
tarily give up his darling? Never! Never! 
He had the same right to her as she. He 
would never yield the child to her. 

And then? She shuddered in helpless 
terror. Then she must make a choice, more 
frightful than anything which had ever 
entered her mind, a choice between her child 
and the man she loved. 


258 Where Snow is Sovereign 

She sat as if turned to stone. Hour after 
hour passed, but she did not stir. The last 
muttering of thunder died away in the dis- 
tance. The profound silence of a quiet sum- 
mer night spread over the mountains. It 
seemed to Elizabeth that this horrible night 
would never end. Only by the moving to and 
fro of the guides, who rose sleepily every half 
hour to feed the glimmering fire, could she 
perceive the flight of time. 

Yet she dreaded the morning, whose cold, 
frosty light at last filtered through the holes 
in the shutters. This day must bring the de- 
cisive explanation with her husband. And if 
the result was what she feared, she must 
determine. Whence could she derive the 
strength, the courage to choose either of the 
two equally terrible alternatives? 

Yet anything was better than this uncer- 
tainty. Fevered and worn by the night’s 
watching, she sat with her elbows on her 
knees, her chin resting on her hands, upon the 
hard wooden stool! She thought of the first 
night in the mountain hut, which she had 
spent with the wounded man not two weeks 
before. What a difference! Then, laughing 
and jesting, they had drunk champagne, and 
now — a disagreeable odor of carbolic acid 


Where Snow is Sovereign 259 

pervaded the chilly room, half-effaced blood- 
stains wherever the eye turned, a dreary, deso- 
late place, in which Death had looked while 
passing, while her whole heart was racked 
with anxiety and grief. 

I wish I had never seen you! ” 

She felt something akin to passionate hate 
for the man who had robbed her of all rest and 
peace. Hate for the man she loved! She 
could not understand it. Stretching her stiff- 
ened limbs, she rose slowly and bent over the 
grim face surrounded by a blood-stained 
beard. Again a despairing voice within her 
soul cried out: wish I had never seen 

you!” 

The heavy tramp of mountain shoes, and the 
dropping of ice-axes on the rock echoed out- 
side. The door opened. The figures of the 
guide and the young physician were outlined 
against the pale-blue sky. 

The American knelt beside the wounded 
man. 

So he has spoken?” he asked in surprise. 

“Yes. Why not?” replied the Baron’s 
deep resonant voice from the darkness. 

The guides laughed, and the doctor’s lips 
curved in a smile. 


26 o Where Snow is Sovereign 

“ Then there is no farther danger,” he said. 

We can carry you down comfortably now.” 

Are you the physician? ” asked the crags- 
man. 

Yes.” 

“Have I broken any bones?” 

“Not one, strangely enough.” 

“ That is luck rather than anything else,” 
the deep bass voice said pleasantly from the 
corner, “ and you guides can stop laughing at 
me. I can teach you something when you take 
your next tumble.” 

Elizabeth had gone up to the black-haired 
guide. “ I should like to go first. Will you 
take me? ” 

“ Parfaitement, Madame! ” The courteous 
Frenchman hastily prepared to start. 

The young wife held out her hand to the 
wounded man. “ Good-bye till we meet 
again,” she said in a low, hurried tone. “ I 
must go down to Zermatt. I cannot wait. If 
there is time, we will meet in the Hotel 
Schwarzsee.” 

Before he could answer, they had left the 
hut. Bright sunshine flooded everything with 
warm, new life as, with the guide by her side, 
Elizabeth went down into the valley. 


CHAPTER XIX 


The golden sunbeams, and the people throng- 
ing out joyously under the blue sky they 
had not seen for three long days, seemed to 
Elizabeth a mockery. The hotels in the val- 
ley and the village below must have been 
nearly deserted, so great was the crowd of 
tourists and guides everywhere on the stony 
zigzag of the road, the winding brown foot- 
path, the steep green meadows, and the gloomy 
pine-woods. 

Of course these were not the cragsmen of 
the High Alps. At this time they were either 
climbing far above on the icy peaks, or break- 
fasting comfortably in their hotels to set out 
toward noon for the mountain huts, where 
they intended to pass the night to be ready for 
the next ascent. The people gathering edel- 
weiss on the slopes, shouting gay greetings 
from valley to valley, and resting in the shade 
of the trees, with their alpenstocks by their 
side, wiping the perspiration from their brows, 
were contented souls to whom the Gornergrat 
seemed a dizzy height, and the march through 

261 


262 Where Snow is Sovereign 

the snow across the Theodule pass an Alpine 
achievement. 

Elizabeth felt a sense of repugnance to all 
these kind-hearted people and the admiring 
curiosity with which most of them looked 
after her. Amid the doubts and fears which 
still tortured her yet stirred the unconquer- 
able arrogance with which the mountain 
climber of the High Alps, to whom the true 
marvels of Alpine glory, unattainable by the 
average mortal, have been revealed, looks 
down upon these ladies and gentlemen 
wandering rapturously through the narrow 
valleys, shouting in throngs, and tying up 
bunches of edelweiss. 

That is unjust — certainly! And unlovely 
also! But men are no saints, and succumb 
to glacier vanity as quickly as to any other 
folly. 

The crowd grew larger and larger as, near- 
ing Zermatt, they now walked through the 
meadow valley along the rushing Visp. Here 
portly old Englishwomen were strolling, lean- 
ing on their umbrella handles, their husbands, 
studying the Times, lounged on benches 
or patches of turf, families who, even in the 
distance, could be recognized as possessors 
of “ round-trip tickets,” and who had come up 


Where Snow is Sovereign 263 

by the railroad for a day, moved, staring 
around them in wonder, to the inevitable 
Klamm,” to see, by paying the admittance 
fee of a mark, the pitiful rapids, and eying as 
if he were a cannibal from Central Africa an 
Alpinist who, with his guides, was tramping 
heavily out of Zermatt at an earlier hour than 
usual. German comic papers had unwea- 
riedly taught them that a “ mountain fool ” 
was a ridiculous combination of an idiot and a 
suicide. But when they now saw, towering 
into the blue heavens far above them, the glori- 
ous, apparently unattainable peaks which the 
cragsman joyously and powerfully strove to 
climb, they felt, comical though it might be, 
almost a sort of respect, nay, wellnigh envy 
of the deluded mountain scrambler. 

' People — throngs of people! Young girls 
gathering flowers in the meadow, children 
playing, noise and laughter everywhere. 
Elizabeth quickened her pace to escape all 
this merriment and sunshine. 

But they were obliged to be on their guard 
on account of the children swarming in the 
path, lest they should fall over one of the little 
things. The mother-heart stirred in Frau 
von Randa. Smiling faintly, she glanced 


264 Where Snow is Sovereign 

at the German, French, and English tots 
playing in the meadow beside her in the 
sunlight. 

She knew yonder little Kate Greenaway 
gown. She had made one herself this Spring 
just like it for her own darling — she remem- 
bered perfectly sitting on the veranda and 
often, while at work, gazing up thoughtfully 
at the ancient elms in the castle park, rustling 
above her head — precisely the very same as 
the one worn by the little girl whose back was 
turned to her. Even the alterations she had 
made in the pattern were there. 

She stood still in surprise. Her heart was 
throbbing violently. If it were so — if, under 
the big straw hat, a sweet, serious little face 
which she knew so well, was looking question- 
ingly into the world with a child’s large, inno- 
cent eyes. No, that was impossible! How 
could it be? 

Yet she walked softly on tiptoe, that she 
might not startle the little one, over to the 
Kate Greenaway figure. Laying her hand on 
the child’s shoulder, she bent down, gazed into 
its face a moment with a bewildered expres- 
sion, then, laughing and sobbing, fell on her 
knees beside it. 

•‘Why — didn’t you know?” The pretty 



THE MEADOW IN THE VALLEY 









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Where Snow is Sovereign 265 

young nurse stood wondering — “ then the Herr 
Baron must have meant it for a surprise. Oh, 
dear, dear, what a pity! ” 

Elizabeth rose and dried her tears. “Not 
a pity at all!” she said between sobs and 
laughter, “ but how did it happen? ” 

The little Thuringian told her story — four 
days ago a telegram had arrived saying they 
must come here at once, and the house-steward, 
an experienced man — he had been for many 
years a hotel porter — should accompany them. 
So they set off immediately, spent the night 
in Basle, and arrived about ten o’clock last 
evening. And Edith was perfectly well and 
happy. 

Four days ago. That was the very time 
when they had separated on the mountain peak, 
and her husband had returned to the valley 
alone and broken-spirited. Then, in his bitter 
need, he had thought of the child. Elizabeth 
well knew why. 

Taking her little daughter by the hand, she 
went slowly with her toward the village. It 
seemed as if a soothing warmth streamed 
from the little fingers resting so trustingly in 
hers. With relieving, comforting power the 
conviction stole over her: “No one can part 
me from my child. Not even the man up 


266 Where Snow is Sovereign 

alone in the mountains, to whom all the rest 
of my heart and life belong.” 

The little girl shouted joyously. “ Papa! ” 
she called in her clear voice, pointing to Baron 
von Randa, who was looking around him as 
if in search of something, and then, seeing 
Elizabeth, suddenly stood still. 

As they came up, he joined Elizabeth with 
a silent bow. They walked on together for 
some distance, the eyes of both fixed upon the 
ground, without exchanging a single glance. 
At the entrance of the village, he turned to 
the young nurse. “ Stay out of doors with 
Edith a little longer, but not near the glacier 
stream! I will go on with the Baroness.” 

That walk through the village street toward 
the moment which was to decide her fate 
seemed to Elizabeth like an eternity. The gay 
little shops on both sides, the jingling bells 
on the mules, the groups of guides talking 
and bowing, the solemn ringing from the old 
church — all seemed endless. Now at last they 
were in their room. Elizabeth sat down and 
waited silently for what her husband had to 
say. She no longer felt any emotion. All 
agitation seemed frozen in expectation. 

Then she heard his low, weary voice. 

“ I sent for the child, Elizabeth,” he §aid^ 


Where Snow is Sovereign 267 

pacing slowly up and down the room, “ at that 
time — four days ago — you know what hap- 
pened. That there must be a breach between 
us I knew, and I thought : Show her what we 
still have in common. We possess something 
which belongs to us both, our little Edith, 
whom we both love more than anything else 
in the world. When she sees her, perhaps she 
will perceive that we owe it to the child to 
respect and, if possible, to love each other!” 

He stopped and gazed out of the window a 
moment. 

“ Now something quite different from what 
I expected has happened,” he went on in a 
choked voice. Meanwhile you have told me 
that you cannot love me — more than that — 
you have left our home — though it is only a 
few rooms in a hotel, it is still for the time 
our home — and gone to watch beside a stran- 
ger’s sick-bed. It may be explained to the 
world. He was often seen in our society, he 
was our friend — I have told the people here 
so — but we both know what this step means 
for us. You have declared to me far more 
pitilessly than words could have expressed it: 
‘ You are nothing to me — I no longer care for 
you. I will leave you and follow the stranger 
up above!’ 


268 Where Snow is Sovereign 

“ He is better,” the voice added after a brief 
pause. “ Your guide who arrived before you 
told me so. He will live, and tear you from 
me. I might challenge him to mortal combat 
— even I have sufficient courage for that, I be- 
lieve — but what is to be gained if one kills the 
other? The point in question is not myself, 
but your love. That can neither be entreated 
nor constrained. It must be given freely. I 
am too proud to implore you for it. If you 
can no longer bestow it because you no longer 
respect me, if I am nothing to you, nothing at 
all — why, then I will make but one request: 
three months’ time for consideration. If at 
the end of this period you say: ^ I can be noth- 
ing more to you — let me go!’ you shall be 
free.” 

Elizabeth looked up. The decisive ques- 
tion would scarcely cross her quivering lips. 
^^And Edith?” 

Her voice fell on his ears harsh and un- 
modulated, like a stranger’s. His head 
drooped sadly. “ That is the hardest thing,” 
he said slowly. God knows how I have 
struggled with myself, murmuring again and 
again: ‘The child belongs to you! Keep it! 
Do not yield it to the stranger who is robbing 
you of everything else.’ But then, Elizabeth, 


Where Snow is Sovereign 269 

I said to myself again; ‘You, my wife, love 
our child too dearly. I know it. For the 
sake of the child you will stay with me, if I 
insist upon it.’ ” 

“ And then? ” She gazed up into his face 
in anxious suspense. 

‘‘Then!” — he shrugged his shoulders — 
“ then we shall live joylessly side by side. 
You will learn to hate me because I chain you 
by compulsion to my home, and the very 
thing which, as I have just told you, my pride 
forbids, would happen: that I should force one 
who no longer loves and respects me to live 
with me. And the means to accomplish this 
is our own child! No — that is more than 
cruel. It is profanation and debasement of 
the best feeling within you, maternal love.” 

Elizabeth scarcely ventured to breathe. 
Could it be possible? Yes, he was really say- 
ing it. “ A child belongs to the mother. Not 
only for her sake, though she bore it with suf- 
fering, but still more for its own. A mother- 
less child is an unhappy creature. It has a 
right never to forgive those who robbed it of 
its mother. And therefore: if you wish to 
leave me, take Edith.” 

Elizabeth rose and stood motionless, as if 
dazed. Her husband went up to her and. 


270 Where Snow is Sovereign 

laying both hands on her shoulders, looked 
her full in the face. 

“ I need not tell you what this means to me! 
But no matter. It makes no difference. A 
man whose whole life is crushed and desolated 
must not let his heart cling to the last thing 
left — for you must clearly understand, Eliza- 
beth, that you will make me an utterly 
wretched, desperate man. I have loved you 
in my own way as only a poor fellow like my- 
self can love — I love you still — I would give 
my heart’s blood for you — I would kneel at 
your feet and kiss your hands. Think how it 
will be with me when you are gone. My 
house is desolate — all is empty — all, all to 
which my poor heart clung is lost. What 
have I left in the world! And think of Edith! 
Believe me, a child suffers its whole life when 
the two to whom it owes its existence part in 
hate and scorn. She will grow up, and some 
day she will ask you : ‘ Why am I among 
strangers? Where are the castle and the park 
where I once played? Where is my home? 
And where is the man who carried me in his 
arms and hugged and kissed me? ’ And you 
must answer: ‘ The house is empty, you have 
no home. Your father is gone. You will not 
see him. I have ruined his life and yours, be- 


Where Snow is Sovereign 271 

cause I did not have the strength to keep the 
faith I voluntarily swore with a solemn 
oath ...” 

A child’s gay laugh echoed from the next 
room. The nurse had taken the little girl 
there to rest after the walk. Elizabeth raised 
her head. “ Enough,” she said in a low tone, 

leave me alone now — in yonder ...” 

She had sent the nurse away, and was kneel- 
ing by her daughter’s bed. Edith had not yet 
fallen asleep. Her large eyes, clear and ear- 
nest, were gazing into the beautiful troubled 
face bending over her. Elizabeth lowered her 
lashes. She feared that pure, questioning 
gaze, which penetrated the inmost recesses of 
her heart. 

Again she glanced up anxiously. A dread 
of this purity was taking possession of her, 
this calm, passionless innocence speaking from 
the depth of the child’s eyes. 

Yet this was her child — her own self? Like 
a mighty voice of warning the answer rang 
through her soul. 

Your better self! That which is good and 
pure and passionless in you. A time will come 
when you can no longer look me in the eyes, 
even as anxiously and despairingly as now 
For then the deed will have been done, then 


272 Where Snow is Sovereign 

you will have betrayed the loftiest things — 
love and faith. Love for me — faith to my 
father! Then you will lower your eyes before 
me and, if you are happy, you will pay dearly 
for your happiness with your pride and your 
sense of duty. 

The little one had fallen asleep. She no 
longer saw the young mother kneeling by her 
bedside in a silent conflict, from which, 
through heart-rending anguish, the final de- 
cision was reached. 


CHAPTER XX 


On the barren heights, somewhat distant 
from the hotel, at the foot of the Matterhorn, 
lies the Schwarzsee, a small, gloomy pool, 
blackish-green in its rocky basin. The passing 
guides point it out to their employers, and 
tell the story that some time ago one of their 
comrades perished in this lake. A mountain 
guide drowned in the presence of the Matter- 
horn seems to them so strange and marvellous 
a thing, that they can scarcely understand how 
the strangers can merely nod carelessly an^ 
look around for the tempting hotel. 

To-day they had a special reason for point- 
ing out to their tourists the motionless sur- 
face of water, which even the radiant blue 
sky of the summer day could not brighten. 
The gentleman half-lying, half-sitting on the 
boulders warmed by the sun — yes, certainly — 
that bearded gentleman with the black ban- 
dage round his head — was the very same one 
who had the fall a few days ago in the snow- 
storm up in the mountains, and escaped by a 
miracle. His companion was buried yester- 
day at Zermatt. But he was doing very well. 

273 


274 Where Snow is Sovereign 

He had nearly recovered. Only he did not 
say a word, and sat all day up here in the open 
air on some rock from which he could look 
down into the valley as though he was long- 
ingly expecting something from there. Of 
course, when people struck their heads on the 
rocks in such a way, it would be no wonder 
if they were a little queer for a while. It 
would pass off. 

The distant voices died away. Guides and 
travellers went down to the hotel. Baron von 
Giindlingen was again alone with himself and 
his thoughts. 

Or rather: he had only one thought. He 
was waiting. For two endlessly long days and 
nights. 

Around him in a glimmering circle stood 
the Alps. The sun still shone brightly on their 
peaks, though the grey dusk of evening was 
already gathering in the valley. But to-day 
the familiar giants told him nothing. He 
gazed indifferently toward the right at the 
cloud-scaling throng of the peaks of Monte 
Rosa, and the round white back of the Breit- 
horn, carelessly to the left at the narrow 
Zinnal-Rothorn, the ragged Gabelhorn, the 
frost-mailed Dent-Blanche, and across at the 
ugly, clumsy Dom, to the Rimpfieschhorn, 


Where Snow is Sovereign 275 

with its bold, rocky peaks shooting out of the 
snow. Nay, even the evil foe close behind 
it, the infinitely lofty Matterhorn towering 
heavenward, was to-day as alone as if he had 
never engaged in a life-and-death struggle 
with the mighty monarch. 

He waited still. Twilight was slowly as- 
cending. Probably she would not come to- 
day. He rose, shivering, and shaded his eyes 
doubtfully with his hand. 

A figure came in view upon the slope cov- 
ered with debris before him, the figure of a 
tall, slender woman, who glanced around 
searchingly a moment, and then moved swiftly 
toward him. 

A sigh of relief escaped his breast as he 
went to meet her. They clasped hands in 
silence. A vague fear stole over him as he 
saw her face. It was so pale, in spite of the 
keen mountain breeze that tossed her golden 
hair, the curve of her lips was so harsh and 
stern. He dared not be the first to speak of 
what must now be discussed between them. 

Elizabeth, too, was silent for a long time. 
They walked side by side to the shore of the 
lake, whose blackish-green surface now 
rippled under the wind in crests of foam. 
The light lapping of the water echoed mo- 


276 Where Snow is Sovereign 

notonously in the breeze sweeping over the 
mountains. 

There Elizabeth stood still. “ I am glad I 
met you here ” — her voice sounded as calm as 
usual — “ for here we can say everything to 
each other undisturbed! ” 

“ And what have you to say to me? ” 

A brief, anxious pause followed. Then, 
suddenly clasping both his hands, she drew 
them toward her, and looked him full in the 
face. 

“ Why use many words? It needs but few 
to say: ‘ Farewell, my dear, dear friend.’ ” 

He felt a sharp pang pierce his heart. Yet 
the words were no surprise. 

“ I feared it,” he said in a dull, hollow tone, 

and yet — and yet ” 

Elizabeth still clasped his hands. Baron 
von Giindlingen felt how her slender fingers 
pressed his, though she controlled her beauti- 
ful, proud features with all the strength of her 
will. 

We will not torture each other need- 
lessly ” — she shook her head — “ by discussing 
the question a long time. It is decided. This 
must be.” 

“ And decided after mature considera- 
tion? ” 









'h. 




!* 




MONTE ROSA 






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Where Snow is Sovereign 277 

A sorrowful smile flitted over her face for 
a moment. 

You ask me that — my dear friend — now — 
at this moment when we see each other in the 
world for the last time. Surely we can say 
that we love each other with our whole 
hearts. We will take that with us when we 
part. It shall remain our treasure and sanc- 
tuary, and no other human being need know 
what it costs us . . .” 

He could not help it. Tears, the first he 
had known for years, filled his eyes, stifling 
his voice. 

“Are we never to see each other again, 
Elizabeth? ” 

She shook her beautiful head. 

“ Perhaps long years hence, some time when 
we are old and grey. But now, — what will it 
avail to meet again and tell each other once 
more that we are unhappy? That will serve 
no good purpose. We will not play a farce 
and pretend that we shall forget each other. 
We both know that that will not happen soon. 
At least I — I shall never forget you. But in 
time we shall think of each other differently 
from what we do now — not with anxiety and 
grief, but calmly as of our beloved dead.” 

Again he pressed her hands despairingly. 


278 Where Snow is Sovereign 

And no sign of life, Elizabeth? Nothing — 
nothing at all?” 

^‘Nothing at all,” she replied in a clear, 
calm voice. And now, my friend, it is 
over, and the hardest struggle of my life 
lies behind me. But one thing remains for 
me: To thank you. Yes, thank you with 
all my heart. You have awakened the 
best powers of my nature. In the future 
I shall perhaps be unhappy, but calm and 
confident — because I can think of you and of 
myself without lowering my eyes. That was 
what I was seeking in the mountains, what 
drove me up there. You know I told you that 
night in the hut — I was seeking self-respect, 
and, thank God, through you I have found it 
— and for that I thank you.” 

Twilight had gathered around them. On 
grey bat-wings it was stealing over cliffs and 
lake. The sky faded, and distant stars were 
twinkling timidly in the heavens. 

Then above the snow-clad, giant peak, 
flamed a light like the radiance of another 
world. The sun had vanished long ago. Grey 
mists were floating over the spot where it 
sank. Yet there was the brightness, a mys- 
terious, roseate glow suffusing the summits of 
the loftiest crags. Warm, cheerful floods of 


Where Snow is Sovereign 279 

light poured over the broad snow-fields, shin- 
ing with fairy-like lustre through the grey 
gloom of night. From the shadows surround- 
ing the base of the mountain peaks, and creep- 
ing greedily higher, the flaming summits rose 
jubilantly in rosy, translucent radiance against 
the pale-blue of the evening sky. 

Whence came this supernatural light? 
Where did it vanish? It could not be dis- 
covered. With darkness swiftly deepening 
above and around it, between the grey sky, and 
the dusky earth, the mysterious, rose-hued 
brilliance, like the reflection of unknown 
worlds forever hidden from human eyes, 
flamed above the High Alps in prophetic, 
holy silence. 

Elizabeth and her companion gazed a long 
time at the Alpine Glow. 

“ It is the farewell of the mountains,” said 
Elizabeth at last in a low tone. “ I shall not 
return again. But they will be forever cher- 
ished in my heart. I have had bitter experi- 
ences in them, but I bear them no resentment. 
Many things bloomed and withered in my soul 
upon the heights — many things which I had 
never suspected. May all remain buried 
there beneath the snow, unseen by human eyes, 
under the white pall of death,” 


aSo Where Snow is Sovereign 

The mountain summits still greeted one an- 
other with flaming signals across the valley. 
But the darkness rose higher . and higher, 
drowning the glow in grey waves of mists. 

Elizabeth looked full into her companion’s 
face. A proud, sorrowful smile rested on her 
pale lips. 

I am glad that we were permitted to take 
leave of each other here in the presence of the 
High Alps, which brought us together. The 
world up there is raised so far above all that is 
base and ugly — it is pure and white, and 
though, in future, we shall be dead to each 
other, everything has remained white and 
pure between us. 

“ And now there is one thing more I would 
fain say to you, dear friend. I wish you to 
be happy. And happiness can be won only 
through love. You hate mankind because you 
were betrayed. But believe me: love is not 
dead. Love lives, and is everywhere that we 
seek it. And therefore I beseech you: remain 
alone no longer. Go down among men, and 
take them even a small share of what has blos- 
somed so suddenly and luxuriantly between us. 
You will see — it will be returned to you in 
abundant measure — and you will become 
another, a happier man.” 


Where Snow is Sovereign q.Si 

He bowed his head, and murmured in a 
stifled voice: “ I will do it! ” 

Then Elizabeth clasped his hand for the 
last time. 

“ Farewell! ” she gasped in a low, breath- 
less voice, turning away. He looked after the 
slender figure as it descended over the rubble 
to the hotel where the mule was waiting to 
carry her to Zermatt. He knew that she was 
not weeping. With head held haughtily erect, 
she moved on — farther, still farther — his eyes 
could still see her — then he fancied he saw 
her — she had disappeared. 

Disappeared forever! They would prob- 
ably leave early the next morning. When the 
sun sank at this time to-morrow, she would be 
far away from here, in the heat and noise of 
the railway station — in a flat country, among 
shallow people, and he would never again see 
the beautiful, brilliant face, never again hear 
the clear, calm voice. 

His heart was full of a sacred sorrow — 
something which had nothing in common with 
grief and anger. She was dead to him. There 
was nothing left for him to do, except to ful- 
fill her wish, and be again a man among men. 

He glanced up to the sky, where the last 
pale glow was slowly fading and disappearing 


282 Where Snow is Sovereign 

in the peace of the night, and while walking 
with a heavy step over the rough stones, there 
stirred within his soul the incomprehensible 
thrill which sometimes seizes upon us like a 
vague presentiment from unknown distances 
— a presentiment that everything, the world, 
mankind, we ourselves — are something differ- 
ent, something higher than we believe, some- 
thing mysterious, which only in appearance, 
for a brief period, wears the mask of this 
earth. 

He was the last tourist who went down that 
day. In front of the hotel he gazed around 
him once more and bade farewell to the past. 
Then he entered. Night had closed in and, 
over the snowfields, far up the height, the 
tempest was wailing its eternal dirge. 


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